The Chicago Blackhawks ice hockey team is being sued by a curator who was employed to strengthen the organisation’s ties to the Native American community. The curator claims she was the subject of sexual harassment, fraud, and breach of contract. Nina Sanders, an Apsáalooke curator and writer who specialises in Native American art and is also a beadwork artist, filed the complaint in Cook County, Illinois, last week. Sanders is requesting a jury trial and more than $15,000.
In September 2020, the Chicago Blackhawks hired Sanders as a consultant in response to criticism about their team name, the complaint claims. Amidst the anti-racism protests that year, the Washington Commanders had just declared that they would be retiring their prior moniker, a move that came after decades of resistance from Native American groups. Apsáalooke Women and Warriors, the museum’s first major exhibition organised by a Native American academic in association with their community, was organised by Sanders earlier in 2020 at Chicago’s Field Museum.
The 86th Infantry Division of the US army, which fought in both World Wars I and II, is the inspiration behind the naming of the Blackhawks. The unit was dubbed the Blackhawk Division in honour of Black Hawk, a 19th-century Sauk tribe leader who was born in what is now Illinois (born Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak). Against white colonists, Black Hawk protected his people and their territories.
According to Sanders’ lawsuit, she was hesitant to join the hockey team since the Native American community is against sports teams using Indigenous names, logos, or iconography. Many advocacy organisations claim that the practice dehumanises Indigenous people and feeds false notions about them as “savages.”
According to Sanders’ lawsuit, in exchange for her work, Chicago Blackhawks CEO Danny Wirtz promised to carry out a number of commitments, including giving Native Americans full-time jobs, educating staff members about Black Hawk and Native American history and issues, providing opportunities for Native American artists to work in merchandising, and allocating funds to buy land in Illinois to support the Sac and Fox Nation. Additionally, according to the lawsuit, Wirtz assured Sanders that he would support changing the team’s name and emblem.
In the case, it is alleged that Wirtz broke his word and utilised the organization’s ties to Sanders to “pacify resistance” to the Chicago Blackhawks’ use of Native American symbols in order to maintain the team’s “continued economic benefit.”
Sanders has also claimed that the group neglected to look into her allegations of sexual misconduct. According to the lawsuit, she reported several incidents of sexual harassment to the organisation, but none of them were meaningfully addressed or reported to the police. Sanders claims that someone with ties to the Blackhawks made “inappropriate sexual advances” to her, including unwelcome touching and flirtation. According to the lawsuit, this guy attempted to seize Sanders and compel her into his hotel room. A few months later, he emailed Sanders an explicit video of himself.
Someone connected to the Blackhawks is accused of sexually abusing another employee. The lawsuit claims that after being reported by Sanders and the purported victim, that individual was nonetheless permitted to work with the team. Sanders claims that a Blackhawks dancer who had previously sexually assaulted the lady harassed and touched a female guest in a penthouse during a game in November 2022. Sanders said that the company attempted to alter her position and relocate her from the team’s United Centre site in Chicago after she brought these instances to the notice of her superiors. According to the lawsuit, Sanders supplied a timeline of the alleged workplace harassment and discriminatory behaviour during contract negotiations in June 2023 and inquired about the organization’s plan to resolve the issues. She claims that she was told, around a week later, that she would no longer be employed by the business, even though the team would keep reviewing the allegations.
A request for comment from a Chicago Blackhawks spokesman was not immediately answered. The team “noted operational issues in her work, and had received feedback from external partners that they did not want to continue to work with her,” a Blackhawks representative told The New York Times. Sanders made her assertions, according to a Blackhawks representative, only after they were unable to reach an agreement on a new contract, as reported by the Times. The team “found insufficient evidence to substantiate her claims” after looking into the allegations, a representative said, adding that the individuals Sanders named had never worked for the Blackhawks.
