A Mebane resident and activist is suing the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, the Native American tribe of which she is a member, for allegedly violating its own bylaws in voting to amend the tribal constitution in 2024 to expand the tribe’s membership.
The defendants – the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation and current tribal chairman Tony Hayes – contend that the amendment prevented the tribe from ceasing to exist.
The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation has an office at 4902 Dailey Store Road in Burlington, based on documents that have been filed in Alamance County superior court.
In her suit, Crystal Cavalier claims irregularities in the voting procedures render the 2024 amendment legally invalid. She is suing her tribe under multiple alleged claims, including breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. Cavalier is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent what she alleges would be “further unlawful conduct” by the tribe.
Cavalier lost her bid in the May 2022 Democratic primary to represent the 4th congressional district, which at that time included Alamance, Durham, Granville, Orange, and Person counties and a portion of Caswell County; the district is currently represented by Democrat Valerie Foushee. She had also served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2020, participating via computer from home amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
In her suit, Cavalier alleges, “The 2024 constitution, not lawfully ratified, has altered tribal life.” Her suit alleges that “not all members” of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation were allowed to vote on the new constitution last year due to “email-only voting mechanisms.”
Cavalier claims that she’s been personally harmed – through “exclusion from organizational benefit and reputational harm” and subjected to retaliation in voicing her opposition to how the new constitution was adopted.
Cavalier also alleges that the tribe’s leadership has failed to abide by other requirements codified in its bylaws, such as holding annual meetings and filling tribal council vacancies. She notes in her suit that she had served as one of the five members of the tribal council from June 2017 until November 2018,. according to her suit.
A hearing is scheduled early next month in superior court on a motion that the defendants, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation and tribal chairman Tony Hayes, have filed, asking a superior court judge to dismiss the lawsuit.
The amendment that passed in 2024 “expanded membership to prevent the Occaneechi from self-terminating because of its restrictive requirements,” according to the defendants’ motion.
The defendants contend that the voting procedures used to amend the tribal constitution were “consistent with the tribe’s inherent sovereignty.”
A month prior to ratification of the amendment, 91 eligible voting members of the tribe were verified, and all 91 voting members were sent ballots during the month of February 2024. “An email blast to vote was sent out on February 1, 2024…and every Monday until February 29,” the defendants counter in their motion to dismiss.
After the registration period closed on February 29, 2024, voting took place from 6:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. on March 11, 2024, according to the defendants’ motion to dismiss. Out of 72 voting members, 41 voted to ratify the amendment; 29 voted against; and two members abstained. The tribal council “approved the process to amend,” which was within its power and “complies with nonprofit corporate law and is consistent with the tribe’s inherent sovereignty,” according to the defendants’ motion to dismiss.
‘She got mad and now wants to protest’
According to the defendants, Cavalier actually voted on the constitutional amendment and at no time protested it, despite having numerous opportunities to do so.
“She got mad because the amendment passed and now wants to protest that,” the defendants assert in their motion to dismiss Cavalier’s suit. “[The] plaintiff has a history of protesting multiple matters. Her vilification of the N.C. Commission of Indian Affairs caused the commission to post guards at the 2024 Unity Conference because of her disruptive threats and conduct. [The] plaintiff loves the limelight and is thirsty for power.”
In addition to her alleged disruption during the 2024 conference, Cavalier was at the forefront of several protests early last year, after the Mebane city council voted to approve rezoning for the forthcoming Buc-ee’s travel plaza on 32 acres at 32 acres near I-85/40 at Trollingwood-Hawfields Road.
Cavalier contended that Buc-ee’s would be built on indigenous Indian land, potentially disturbing Native American burial grounds and artifacts, based on a press conference held by her organization, 7 Directions of Service, and multiple news reports that ran at the time.
Last summer, 7 Directions of Service also protested a residential development in Carteret County, where they held a prayer service for “exposed and desecrated American Indian burial grounds,” during which an off-duty Onslow County sheriff’s deputy was accused of assaulting one of the group’s members, multiple news outlets reported.
Cavalier’s husband, Jason “Crazy Bear” Keck had attended a Graham city council meeting in May 2022, where he shouted at the city council, demanding the firing of Graham police officer Douglas Strader over his involvement in the arrests of three residents at The Pines Apartments in Graham for allegedly interfering with a traffic stop. (The suit doesn’t explicitly state why the lawsuit was filed under the plaintiff’s previous name, Cavalier; and there are no documents on file in Alamance County or elsewhere that would confirm her current marital status.)
In March 2023, Cavalier and other activists disrupted an auction in progress at the Mebane Antique Auction Gallery at 7607 U.S. Highway 70 and prevented a 600-year-old indigenous skull from being sold, The (Raleigh) News & Observer reported at the time. Cavalier reportedly characterized the attempt to sell the skull as inhumane.
‘Courts powerless to intervene in tribal self-government’
In their motion, the defendants also point to an overriding reason why Cavalier’s suit should be dismissed.
“Courts are powerless to intervene in the exercise of tribal self-government,” the defendants argue. “Federal statute, federal common law, and state statute all require us to treat bonafide Indian tribes as sovereign nations and to protect [the] tribal right to self-determination,” as established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978, as well as court precedents in Connecticut, Georgia, and Maine.
The Occaneechi Band gained official state recognition as a Native American tribe in 2002, after petitioning the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs in 1990 and a lengthy court battle, according to the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1978 established that Native American tribes have the right to determine their own membership.
The defendants are being represented by Hillsborough attorney John D. Loftin, who has also written several books about Native American history, including one about the Kituwah site for the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians and another chronicling the religious traditions of the Hopi tribe in northeastern Arizona.
Cavalier is being represented by Durham attorney Scott Holmes, who is the director of the Civil Litigation Clinic at N.C. Central University. Holmes was one of the attorneys who recently won a $120,000 settlement on behalf of five plaintiffs who sued Graham and Alamance County law enforcement officials over their handling of a protest outside the Alamance County jail in November 2019.
The mission of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation is to support the people of the region surrounding the Eno River – named for the Native Americans who lived along the riverbanks that snake through much of Orange and Durham counties – and to promote its socioeconomic development and cultural preservation.
Cavalier currently resides at 5123 North N.C. Highway 119 in Mebane, according to other official records.
