North Dakota
UND LGBTQ community thriving despite unclear future
GRAND FORKS – UND is home to a flourishing LGBTQ community thanks to efforts from students, staff and faculty, though its future is shrouded in uncertainty as states across the country propose and enact bans against diversity, equity and inclusion at public institutions.
Jeff Maliskey became the first director of UND’s Pride Center in 2022 after having steered it in an interim capacity since 2017. Under his stewardship, the LGBTQ community has taken an increasingly active role on campus.
“You start small, and then it’s grown all over campus,” Maliskey said. “That’s why you really do see us kind of as this hub in the state, this hub in little Grand Forks, North Dakota, as the ones leading the initiatives.”
Darin Buri, the College of Engineering and Mines Facility and library manager, credits the increased visibility of the community to Maliskey.
“Jeff’s been wonderful,” Buri said. “It wasn’t always visible, but I think it’s gotten a lot more visible since Jeff started in his position.”
Maliskey joined the university staff in May 2015, during a time when marriage equality was a political hot topic. This would culminate in the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision the very next month, which made same-sex marriage a constitutionally protected right.
The month before Maliskey came to Grand Forks, the North Dakota Legislature
voted down a bill that would prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ individuals
.
“(It wasn’t) a great conversation that I was hearing around campus from other faculty and staff, from students that were engaging in conversations,” Maliskey said. “So I almost felt like I was retreating a little bit back into the closet, if you will.”
Over two years later, in the 2017 fall semester, Maliskey was approached by the university’s vice president to take the interim leadership position of the newly founded Pride Center.
The center was created as a result of student advocacy, providing a physical space as well as resources and support for a community that has been active on campus since the creation of the Ten Percent Society, now known as the Queer and Trans Alliance, in the 1980s. Both were firsts for the state, according to Maliskey, creating a picture of a university leading efforts for queer and trans inclusion in North Dakota.
From the 1980s onward, students were responsible for leading these efforts, Maliksey said. Once the Pride Center was established, staff and faculty began to assume a greater role, using the Pride Center to provide students with support and resources as well as forming their own advocacy group, the LGBTQ Staff and Faculty Association.
During the most recent academic year, the Pride Center held 43 events, including the LGBTQ+ Higher Education Day-Long Institute and week-long events like Coming out Week and Trans Awareness Week. The center also provided academic support for LGBTQ students, such as study tables and academic challenges that were successful in raising the GPA of some of its participants, according to the center’s annual report.
Maliskey said the effect has been felt by students. The number of students involved with the Pride Center and the programs it offers has increased every year and the climate for LGBTQ students on campus has improved since.
However, the national conversation surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion doesn’t bode well for the center and the support it provides for students.
According to the Chronicle Of Higher Education
, 85 bills that would prohibit public colleges and universities from having diversity, equity and inclusion offices and staff have been introduced across 28 states and the U.S. Congress since 2023. Of those 85 bills, 14 have become law in states like Florida, Texas and most recently Utah, where LGBTQ resource centers have closed their doors for good.
In North Dakota,
such a bill was signed into law last April
, though it extended only to prohibiting mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion — commonly referred to as DEI — training and diversity statements. Offices that receive funding from public universities, such as UND’s Pride Center, can remain open for now.
“We don’t have the federal protection and it’s really up to the states,” Maliskey said. “It’s not looking great or promising for us right now.”
According to Maliskey, closing down these centers could result in students, faculty and staff leaving the schools and the states to go to institutions elsewhere. This doesn’t just apply to queer and trans students, Maliskey said, but allies as well.
A closure could also result in an increase in mental health concerns, which Maliskey said is already being experienced by states that have lost their services.
“Are we going to be here tomorrow? Oh, I hope,” Maliskey said. “I hope we can continue to do our work to support students. We know there’s a need, because if we don’t we know the outcome isn’t great for our students.”
In the past year, 39% of LGBTQ young people nationwide seriously considered attempting suicide and 12% attempted suicide, according to
survey data from the Trevor Project
, a nonprofit focusing on suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ youth. Additionally, among those surveyed who reported living in very accepting communities, the suicide rate was less than half as those who reported living in very unaccepting communities.
Such figures reflect the importance for LGBTQ adults on campus to be more open about their identity and support the students, according Bridget Brooks, an instructional designer and the current chair of the LGBTQ Staff and Faculty Association’s Board of Executives.
“I think being visible, if it saves one person’s life, it’s worth it,” Brooks said. “And it’s worth anything that could ever possibly happen to myself if someone else’s life is saved. So that’s why we need to be visible.”
The LGBTQ Faculty and Staff Association was created in the summer of 2021 after Maliskey, at the time the assistant director for the Hillyard Center and LGBTQ Initiatives, brought together a group of 10 faculty and staff.
According to Maliskey, the LGBTQ Staff and Faculty Association began as an informal network of LGBTQ staff and faculty who met to have conversations and build a community
Even though there’s a large number of LGBTQ faculty and staff on campus, previous activity was almost exclusively the territory of students, according to Buri. This meant that until the association was formed, there wasn’t any formal organization for faculty and staff.
“Now with this organization, we meet with the students a lot and participate in a lot of the things that they do,” Buri said. “So it’s a way for us to be visible and supportive of them as well.”
Maliskey said the association has not only increased the community’s visibility on campus, but it has also been able to connect students with faculty for research and academic support. If a student wants to engage in queer and trans research, Maliskey is able to connect them with faculty in the group who do that kind of work.
Another part of the association is the Out List, a voluntary list of currently 25 staff and faculty members who have chosen to openly identify as LGBTQ to amplify the community’s visibility and networking opportunities on campus.
“We all hold different identities,” Maliskey said. “No matter where you’re at, you can find somebody to connect with.”
Visibility has been an essential part of the UND LGBTQ community’s longevity, according to Buri. It’s also helped change minds and create a more tolerant climate on campus for the community.
“When you’re visible you’re not just a number or a statistic anymore,” Buri said. “And people know you and all of a sudden it kind of changes the dynamic, how they think.”
Despite an unclear future for the Pride Center and the LGBTQ community in general, Buri said he maintains hope.
“I think that it’s going to take all of us working together, but I think the future is bright,” Buri said. “We’ll get past whatever obstacles we have and we’ll do OK. We always have.”
North Dakota
Challengers declare victory after ND Supreme Court rules against Legislature’s attempt to alter term limits
BISMARCK — A constitutional ballot measure to amend the state’s term limits law as proposed by the Legislature will not appear on November’s ballot, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday, siding with petitioners who argued the Legislature exceeded its authority and violated the state constitution in proposing the changes.
“The people’s voice was heard,” Grand Forks County Commissioner Terry Bjerke said in reaction to the news.
Bjerke was a member of the sponsoring committee behind the successful 2022 effort to pass a term limits initiative, which amended the state constitution by capping legislative term limits to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. The amendment, which became article XV of the state constitution, also included a clause barring the Legislature from making constitutional changes to term limits.
During the 2025 session, however, lawmakers narrowly approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, in which the legislature proposed Constitutional Measure 1, a ballot measure to amend the term limits language to allow legislators to decide in which chamber they want to serve their 16 years, and to repeal the clause limiting the legislative assembly’s authority to propose an amendment to alter or repeal term limits.
Bjerke and former Minot legislator Oley Larsen brought the lawsuit challenging the validity of the Legislature’s action in January, and the state Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the case
this spring.
“Those term limits may only be altered by a measure proposed by the people rather than the Legislative Assembly. And yet a few years later, the Legislative Assembly is doing what they are prohibited from doing,” attorney Zachary Wallen argued on Bjerke and Larsen’s behalf.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
The Legislature’s attorneys argued the clause prohibiting legislative proposals to alter the constitutional term limits language “infringes on our republican form of government” by “limiting the people’s ability to vote on amendments proposed by their elected officials.”
Justice Jon Jensen seemed skeptical of that argument during the April 2 hearing, questioning whether a second vote was appropriate.
“The public did speak on this. The public spoke on it when it passed the original constitutional amendment and they said, ‘Legislature, you don’t even get to propose a change.’ They have already spoken on it,” Jensen said. “You want a second shot, or a second bite at the apple, not a first one, a second.”
In Thursday’s ruling, all five justices sided with Bjerke and Larsen.
“We … conclude the Legislative Assembly’s adoption of S.C.R. 4008 violated N.D. Const. art. XV … and declare S.C.R. 4008 and Constitutional Measure 1 void … We enjoin the Secretary of State from placing Constitutional Measure 1 on the November 2026 general election ballot,” the ruling said.
Bjerke thanked the legal team that worked on behalf of their lawsuit, and said he was grateful the court reached the conclusion it did.
“I’m thrilled that what the people voted on and approved has been validated,” Bjerke said.
He added that the Legislature had “multiple opportunities” to address term limits prior to 2022’s initiated measure and chose not to, and gave a nod to the country’s coming milestone and the process by which voters expressed their support for term limits.
“We’ve lasted 250 years,” Bjerke said. “I have two words for those elected leaders who think they aren’t: everyone’s replaceable.”
North Dakota
Fargo woman convicted in North Dakota fraud case now faces charges in Minnesota: A deeper dive
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – A North Dakota woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail in Cass County for defrauding healthcare providers and Medicaid programs is now facing additional fraud charges in Minnesota.
Christine Marie Pryor, 55, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to theft by deception involving more than $50,000. She was sentenced to first serve 180 days with a 3-year sentence suspended. She received credit for 44 days already served.
Pryor was ordered to pay $82,584.78 in restitution to Southeast Human Services in Fargo, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
How the scheme unfolded
According to court documents, Pryor worked at multiple healthcare facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota between 2018 and 2023, using the identities and credentials of three licensed professionals without their knowledge. She submitted fraudulent Capella University diplomas and transcripts to gain employment.
Investigators say Pryor admitted she searched state licensing websites for therapists who shared her first name, then used those therapists’ last names and license numbers when applying for jobs.
At Southeast Human Services, where she worked as a Licensed Addiction Counselor, Pryor earned $55,584.82 while providing therapy services to approximately 150 patients. She also opened her own counseling center, NIAM Brain Injury Center, in Fargo between 2020 and 2021, and worked at The Lotus Center in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 2021 to 2023.
Court documents say the three licensed professionals whose identities were used told investigators they had no knowledge of Pryor’s actions and did not give her permission to use their information.
Two additional charges against Pryor in North Dakota, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, were dismissed on motion of the state.
Additional charges in Minnesota
Pryor is also facing charges in Minnesota. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday charges against Pryor in Clay County District Court for six theft offenses and six identity theft offenses related to defrauding Minnesota’s Medicaid program of more than $150,000.
According to the Minnesota complaint, Pryor claimed to provide psychotherapy and alcohol and drug counseling services to Medicaid recipients despite having no license or credentials to do so. Prosecutors allege she used the credentials and identities of three licensed professionals while claiming to provide Medicaid-funded services to 169 clients.
The Minnesota charges were filed as part of National Health Care Fraud Takedown Day, a joint effort involving the Department of Justice and more than 40 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
Copyright 2026 KVLY. All rights reserved.
North Dakota
NCAA Set to Change Unpopular Football Rule Just in Time for North Dakota State’s FBS Jump
North Dakota State playing in the FCS playoffs and College Football Playoff in back-to-back years? It’s likelier than you think.
That’s because on Wednesday, according to a report from Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports, the NCAA Division I cabinet voted to repeal a rule that effectively barred teams transitioning from FCS to FBS from playing in postseason games in their first FBS seasons. The Bison are making that move along with Sacramento State in 2026.
The reported change has been a long time coming; the rule has hampered teams from immediate bowl eligibility for decades. Its good intentions of dissuading teams from rashly making the FCS-to-FBS leap have been rendered obsolete in recent years by the fact that programs generally arrive in FBS more prepared than ever before.
Consider the number of new FBS teams that have had to work within the provision in the past decade alone
That list includes: Liberty (home for the holidays at 6–6 in 2018), James Madison (8–3 in 2022 under coach Curt Cignetti, and barely able to play in a bowl at 11–1 in ’23 due to a lack of bowl-eligible teams), Jacksonville State (8–4 in ’23 before backing in like the Dukes), Missouri State (7–5 in 2025, also backed in) and Delaware (6–6 in ’25, ditto).
James Madison in particular became a cause célèbre in ’23 because it started the season 10-0, climbing as high as No. 18 in the AP Poll in mid-November. Then-Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares bandied about suing the NCAA before the Dukes lost 26–23 to Appalachian State, an event that caused the program to back off and accept a bid to play Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl. James Madison lost that game 31–21, by which time Cignetti had left for Indiana.
There was a time when the FCS-to-FBS jump was an imposing one, and the NCAA did not want to incentivize making it lightly—not even a proud Florida A&M program could make a mid-2000s attempt at a jump stick. However, the Flames, Dukes and other teams have shown it’s not so great a climb for programs with the right resources and management.
Now the Bison and the Hornets stand to benefit.
How far can North Dakota State and Sacramento State go in the near term?
The Bison opened 12–0 last year before a shock loss to Illinois State in the FCS playoffs’ second round, so that question may answer itself. North Dakota State does not play a single Power 4 team—a potential strength-of-schedule albatross if it has designs on really surging. A potential roadblock: the fact that the Bison have to visit the Mountain West’s two favorites, UNLV (Oct. 10) and New Mexico (Oct. 24).
It’s a different story for the Hornets, a 7–5 squad a year ago whose move to the FBS is widely seen as a gamble on their growth potential. Sacramento State also does not play a major-conference team, but has a breakneck travel schedule ahead of it—the Hornets will visit Ypsilanti, Mich.; Bowling Green, Ohio; Muncie, Ind.; Mount Pleasant, Mich. and Honolulu. Combine that with a first-year coach—Oakland native and ex-MC Hammer choreographer Alonzo Carter—and it could be a long FBS debut in California’s capital.
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