I am no wikipedia expert, but I am an Indian law expert, licensed and trained as such in fact. The description on how this system works indicates that if one seeks to challenge misinformation or bias in a wikipedia article, one should utilize the talk page. I now seek to do so. I believe misinformation and bias are present in the article on Salish Kootenai College. The misinformation and bias exists in the following text:
"The College is notable for being publicly sued under the Federal False Claims Act by former employees for falsifying student records to continue receiving public grant funding from the United States Department of Human Services and the United States Department of Indian Health Services.[2]"
This is misinformation. First, this is nowhere close to what the college is "notable" for. This College is notable for successfully educating thousands of Native American students, most of which come from disenfranchised backgrounds and all manner of challenge, and helping them achieve their educational goals. It is one of the oldest Native American colleges in the United States and was a pioneering institution when it originally began.
This is also bias and seeks only to inflame. It adds a negative viewpoint on the College which is also inaccurate. It simply seeks to paint the college in a negative light which detracts not only from the work that it does, but also value readers award Wikipedia material. First, one cannot be publicly or privately sued. There is sued or not. There is no such thing as a public suit. All False Claims legal actions are public in nature. Second, the College has not been sued yet, as the article which is linked to the text illustrates. As the article shows, the Court found that the Tribe, who owns the College, was immune from suit. What this means is that the Tribe cannot be sued at any time in any court by any one unless it consents to be sued or the U.S. Congress expressly states that it can be sued. This is a bedrock principle of law called sovereign immunity from suit. All sovereigns, countries, states, tribes, etc enjoy this privilege. Here, Congress did not allow a suit against a Tribe when it created the False Claims Act and the Tribe did not waive its own immunity from suit, therefore the Tribe cannot be sued. At this point, the Court is still determining whether the College, which is owned by the Tribe, can be sued at all. So it has not yet been "sued." Governmental entities of Indian tribes can enjoy the immunity privilege of the tribe by virtue of how they are created and used, and sometimes they do not enjoy the immunity. The Court is currently engaged in this fact-finding effort to determine if the College is the type of governmental entity which can be sued at all. As the Court has not yet made its determination, the College has not yet been sued.
Finally, as a clear and quick search of the federal government would establish, there is no such agency as the "United States Department of Human Services" or the "United States Department of Indian Health Services." There is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of which, Indian Health Service, is a subagency.
I am not sure how this all works, but again, it doesn't do the College or wikipedia any benefit to have inaccurate, biased, or inflammatory information hanging around. But it isn't my show.
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