PONSFORD, Minn. — Winona LaDuke has stepped down as the leader of a Native American environmental group she founded 30 years ago, a resignation that came just days after a jury sided with a former employee in a sexual harassment case.
Honor the Earth co-executive director Krystal Two Bulls made the announcement in a statement on the organization’s website Wednesday.
“It is with both great heaviness and optimism that we move into a transition of responsibilities, after Winona LaDuke’s establishment and leadership of this organization for over 30 years,” Two Bulls said, adding she was the sole executive director of Honor the Earth as of Wednesday.
LaDuke, an enrolled member of the Ojibwe Nation, founded Honor the Earth in 1993 as a way to create awareness and support for environmental issues that impact Native Americans. She told the Forum in a statement that she had been planning the transition with her board for the past couple of years.
Two Bulls joined LaDuke as co-executive director in December, according to the news release. Two Bulls is an Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne organizer. She previously worked as the NDN Collective’s Landback Campaign director.
The change in leadership comes less than a week after Honor the Earth lost a $750,000 lawsuit to former employee Margaret “Molly” Campbell. Jurors on Thursday in Becker County, Minn., sided with Campbell after she claimed LaDuke and other Honor the Earth leadership ignored reports that colleague Michael Dahl made sexually inappropriate comments toward her from 2014 into 2015.
Campbell also alleged that she faced retaliation because she reported the sexual harassment accusations. One Honor the Earth board director reprimanded her, and the organization ultimately put her on unpaid administrative leave before she resigned in 2015, according to a civil complaint attached to the lawsuit.
Honor the Earth denied wrongdoing in the case. After the ruling, LaDuke said in her own statement that the Minnesota Department of Human Rights found “no probable cause” of sexual discrimination or punitive action in a 2019 investigation.
Just hours before Honor the Earth announced its leader’s resignation, LaDuke posted on Facebook that she failed Campbell and would step down as executive director. The former employee was a contract employee, and LaDuke said in the lengthy post that the laws were not clear on how to handle the situation.
“For that, I am deeply sorry,” LaDuke said. “I am sorry for the hurt caused to Ms. Campbell, and I am sorry for the broader harm that resulted too.”
LaDuke went on to explain that Honor the Earth was a small organization when Campbell reported the claims. The group didn’t have policies to deal with the situation, and it was battling the Sandpiper pipeline project that would have carried oil across northern Minnesota.
LaDuke said the pipeline, which was ultimately scrapped when Enbridge withdrew its permit, would have threatened Native American wild rice lakes.
LaDuke noted that the post was meant to offer context, but the explanation was not an excuse or stand-in for accountability. She said she takes personal responsibility for what happened, adding “the mistakes made and harms caused were not the result of the Board of Directors of Honor the Earth.”
“I firmly believe that everyone deserves a workplace free of sexual harassment, and I deeply regret not responding to Ms. Campbell’s claims with the appropriate level of care and urgency as I should have,” she said in the post. “I was overwhelmed.”
LaDuke also said she called for a reconciliation or restorative justice process instead of going through the courts.
“The court system is a punitive, white, carceral system that targets Native Peoples,” she said, noting the judge in the civil suit was white and the jury was mostly white. “In such a forum, it was unsurprising that the result would be a staggering and disproportionate fine against Honor the Earth.”
In her statement to the Forum, LaDuke said she was saddened by the court’s decision but felt new leadership would do well for her organization.
“We have an excellent track record of work and an amazing board and new leader,” she said in the statement. “I will support her however she needs in the transition but believe she has all the powers needed to do great work.”
LaDuke said she plans to continue her work as a water protector and will grow fiber hemp.
Two Bulls said she came on as part of a leadership team meant to “create fundamental changes to the organization to prepare Honor The Earth for the next 30 years of work.”
“The timeline for the transitional leadership plan, under which I was originally brought into the organization, has obviously escalated in light of Winona LaDuke’s resignation,” Two Bulls said. “The next few months especially will be ones of intense changes, learning and growing for us as leadership, management, staff, and our organization as a whole.”
Two Bulls’ statement didn’t mention the lawsuit by name, but she noted work that needs to be done regarding sexual harassment.
She said the organization also wants to continue to build upon its efforts to dismantle the fossil fuel industry and create alternative solutions “for a just and sustainable future.”
