South Dakota hotel owner found liable for discrimination against Native Americans

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The owner of a South Dakota hotel who said Native Americans were banned from the establishment was found liable for discrimination against Native Americans on Friday.

A federal jury decided the owner of the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City will pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages to various plaintiffs who were denied service at the hotel. The jury awarded $1 to the NDN Collective, the Indigenous advocacy group that filed the lawsuit.

The group brought the class-action civil rights lawsuit against Retsel Corporation, the company that owns the hotel, in 2022. The case was delayed when the company filed for bankruptcy in September 2024. The head of the company, Connie Uhre, passed away this September.

“This was never about money. We sued for one dollar," said Wizipan Garriott, president of NDN Collective and an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. "It was about being on record for the discrimination that happened, and using this as an opportunity to be able to really call out racism.”

Uhre posted on social media in March 2022 that she would ban Native Americans from the property after a fatal shooting at the hotel involving two teenagers whom police identified as Native American. She wrote in a Facebook post that she cannot “allow a Native American to enter our business including Cheers,” the hotel's bar and casino.

When Native American members of the NDN Collective tried to book a room at the hotel after her social media posts, they were turned away. The incident drew protests in Rapid City and condemnation from the mayor as well as tribes in the state.

In Friday's decision, the jury also ruled in Retsel's countersuit against NDN Collective that the group had acted as a nuisance in its protests against the hotel, awarding $812 to the company.

Following a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department in November 2023, Uhre had to publicly apologize and was banned from managing the establishment for four years.

The Associated Press reached out to the defense attorneys for comment.

Rapid City, a gateway to Mount Rushmore, has long seen racial tensions. At least 8% of the city's population of about 80,000 identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native, according to census data.