Running late, Alexis Archuleta rushed backstage to line up for the graduation procession when she was stopped by shouts of “No, no, no.”

“You can’t wear that,” she remembers an administrator scolding her.

When she turned around, the staffer was pointing at her head. Archuleta had on her Hillcrest High mortarboard, with the edges specially beaded in a green and white design to represent her Navajo culture.

“Plain caps only,” the employee said, according to Archuleta. Her parents, who had trailed behind her to make sure she found her place, tried to protest. Her mom, Tina Archuleta, pulled out her phone to display the recently passed Utah law allowing Indigenous students to wear their Native regalia, including beading, at graduation ceremonies. But the staffer waved them off, saying she wasn’t going to argue with them about the rules, the family said.

“You can either un-bead it or buy a new hat,” they recalled the administrator saying. “If you don’t, you won’t be able to walk.”

The procession music was starting. And a nearby teacher handed Alexis the $10 for a new cap. Feeling like they didn’t have another option if they wanted to see their daughter graduate, her parents carried the beaded cap with them to their seats inside the auditorium. Alexis only wore it outside, when the May 25 ceremony was over.

“I’m mad,” said Alexis, 18. “This is my culture. It’s not just some decoration.”

And the law was supposed to allow her to wear it.

During almost every graduation season for the past few years, Utah has been in the spotlight for a high-profile case where a student hasn’t been able to wear cultural regalia. In 2018, a Tongan student here was told he couldn’t wear his traditional ta’ovala cloth under his graduation gown. In 2019, a Navajo student was stopped from wearing eagle feathers on top of her cap. The same happened again to multiple Native students in 2021.

Hoping to put an end to that, the Utah Legislature took up the issue in 2022 and again this past session. The first law passed, HB30, focused specifically on tribal regalia — making it illegal to stop registered Native American students from wearing their regalia during high school graduations. That specifically listed beads and feathers on both caps and gowns.

The second law passed and signed this year, SB103, expanded the state code to also permit other cultural and religious wear, including hijabs, leis and sashes, at the ceremonies.

The Archuleta family said the administrator wouldn’t listen when they cited those. Their case appears to be the first in the state where a student wasn’t allowed to wear their regalia after — or despite — the two laws passed.

Canyons School District, which oversees Hillcrest High in Midvale, confirmed to The Salt Lake Tribune that Alexis Archuleta was blocked from wearing her beaded cap, saying the school had a policy for the students not to have any adornments on their hats. A spokesperson there acknowledged that contradicts the new law and said the district will inform all its schools to abide by state law “moving forward.”

But it’s left the Archuleta family questioning why administrators for Hillcrest High either weren’t aware of the law — or chose to ignore it this year. What’s the point of having the law, asked Tina Archuleta, if they can just decide not to adhere to it?

She remains stunned at what had happened and felt “like our culture had been targeted,” she said, noting that the cap took days to bead and had been blessed — it wasn’t something you just take apart backstage.

Acknowledging Hillcrest policy violated the law

It took 10 years of pushing and testifying and lobbying to get the law on regalia for graduation ceremonies passed in Utah, said Harold “Chuck” Foster, who is Navajo and the American Indian specialist with the Utah Board of Education. The state is one of only a handful in the country that have that protection.

To see how the Archuleta family was treated, Foster said, stings after all of that work. And he worries it means school districts in the state are not only ignorant to the law but also to Native American cultures.

Foster said he sat down with the principal of Hillcrest High a week after the ceremony to discuss what happened. The administrator told him, according to Foster, that he was “unaware of that bill” until Foster had emailed a copy to him before their meeting.

Foster questioned how that was possible, with the publicity around it and the requirements for school districts to stay up-to-date on state code. But he plans to visit as many districts across the state this year to make sure that’s not a cause of any problems in the future.

He also called on the principal to apologize to the Archuleta family. As of the first week of June, that hadn’t happened yet.

Foster said the principal also didn’t know why the beaded cap was important, and he plans to teach administrators about that, too.

“He called it costume, so I had to correct him on that. To us, it’s regalia,” he said.

All questions about the incident were referred to the spokesperson for Canyons School District, Jeff Haney.

Haney said Hillcrest High had a rule that students not have anything on their mortarboards, though the school allowed students to wear leis or sashes over their gowns — including Alexis, who had a Native scarf.

“The school had asked all the seniors not to decorate their caps,” he noted.

But the Archuleta family said the policy at Hillcrest wasn’t evenly enforced. Tina and Anthony Archuleta both said they saw several Pacific Islander students with flowers on their caps that walked at the graduation; Canyons School District didn’t comment on that.

The Archuletas said they are glad those students could walk with their cultural displays. They just would have liked for Alexis to be able to wear hers, too.

Traditionally, beading in Native cultures is done to commemorate a major accomplishment, such as graduation. And it’s a way for Indigenous students to carry their heritage with them in important moments. “It shows who we are,” Alexis said.

Her aunt spent nine days beading the mortarboard — in green and white to match her school colors — including late into the night before the ceremony to get it done in time. She stayed up so late, noted her sister Tina, that she missed the graduation.

“It’s a lot of work,” Tina Archuleta said. “It took time and effort. … I was disappointed in how we were treated like it didn’t matter.”

Haney acknowledged the Hillcrest policy also does not align with state law or Canyons’ policy districtwide and said that will be updated. “We’ll make sure in the future that the students who come to graduation with regalia on their cap and gown that reflects their culture, that they can wear those,” he said.

He did not comment on why Hillcrest had a separate set of rules or how it was possible that administrators there weren’t aware of the law.

‘A lot of work we still have to do’

School districts have long pushed for a formal, uniform look among graduates, without having students stand out or draw attention. Families of color have told The Tribune over the years that policy feels like a ban on displaying their culture.

HB30 specifically states that “tribal symbols, beads and feathers” are allowed to be worn by registered tribal members “as part of the dress code for a graduation ceremony” and that “wearing tribal regalia includes decorating graduation attire with tribal regalia.” A school district may not infringe on that, according to the code.

Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, sponsored that legislation and said she was shocked to hear about Hillcrest High not abiding by it.

Romero said there aren’t provisions in the law that would admonish a school for not following the law. But she intends to have the Legislature’s legal counsel draft a letter reminding every school district about the measure “so it doesn’t happen again. It shouldn’t have happened now.”

Romero said she’s particularly bothered by the administration refusing to listen to the Archuleta family when Alexis’s parents pulled up the state code on their phone.

“That’s the part that really bothers me,” she said. “The school district didn’t trust these parents. And then they were forced to buy a new cap on top of that. I think that’s ridiculous.”

Romero and Foster also both noted that Indigenous students face challenges in the public school system and are the racial group least likely to graduate from high school in the state.

“There’s a lot of work we still have to do,” Romero said.

Before the law was passed, it was a hodgepodge of which districts would allow regalia at graduations. Tina Archuleta’s oldest daughter graduated from Taylorsville High in 2001 — which is in Granite School District — and wore a beaded cap without issue. Her son also graduated from Taylorsville High last year, the first year the law was in effect, and no one questioned his beaded cap.

Alexis has been the only one in the family to walk across the stage without one.

Tina Archuleta said she wonders if staff within Canyons School District, which has a smaller minority population than Granite, weren’t aware of the cultural importance because the schools there don’t have as many Native students. Alexis was one of just 19 Indigenous kids out of the 2,293 students attending Hillcrest High this last year, according to state enrollment data.

Alexis, who is also Hispanic, said many of her classmates didn’t understand that she was Navajo. And she’s heard people make hurtful comments about American Indians being extinct.

She’s taking a break for a year before going to college. During that time she hopes to learn more about her culture — and said she might even take up beading so she can design mortarboards for future Native students to wear.