CHEYENNE—Wyoming Supreme Court justices grilled attorneys Wednesday on the legality of the state’s two abortion bans, honing in on what has long been the case’s central question: whether a 2012 amendment to the state constitution prevents lawmakers from ending the practice.

It was a day years in the making after several women, doctors and an abortion aid group filed a lawsuit in March 2023 challenging two newly passed abortion bans. A Teton County District Court sided with the plaintiffs in November, striking down a near-total ban and a second against abortion medications before the state appealed the decision to the high court.  

Much like previous court proceedings, Wednesday’s hearing largely focused on Section 38 of the Wyoming Constitution, which protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions. In their questioning, justices wrestled with whether there’s a compelling reason to prohibit abortion in Wyoming, who gets to decide when life begins and whether health care decisions are a fundamental right. 

The hearing took place less than a week after Gov. Mark Gordon announced that he selected his attorney general, Bridget Hill, to replace Chief Justice Kate Fox when she retires from the Wyoming Supreme Court on May 27.

While the decision isn’t expected to be published before Fox’s retirement, she will participate in its consideration and decision since she heard the case, per the court’s internal operating procedures. Meanwhile, Hill will remain Wyoming’s attorney general until she takes the bench on May 28, and she will not participate in the court’s decision on this particular case. 

In the meantime, abortion in Wyoming remains technically legal, though a pair of new laws has effectively stopped the state’s lone clinic — Wellspring Health Access — from providing abortion services.

One of the new laws requires patients seeking abortion medications to first undergo a transvaginal ultrasound and a 48-hour waiting period. A second placed more onerous regulations on Wyoming clinics that perform abortions. A separate case challenging those abortion restrictions was heard in a Natrona County District Court earlier this month. Choosing not to rule from the bench, Judge Thomas Campbell said he would issue a written decision at a later date.

Inside the courtroom 

The long-anticipated hearing lasted about an hour and kicked off with arguments from Wyoming Special Assistant Attorney General Jay Jerde, who is defending the bans for the state. 

“When you have an individual right that’s fundamental, when the state regulates, it has to have a compelling reason for doing so. And the restrictions imposed have to restrict the right to the minimum amount possible while still accomplishing the compelling purpose,” Jerde said. 

But the right of individuals to make their own health care decisions, as specified in the state’s constitution, is not a fundamental right, Jerde said, because of how it is qualified by another section of the constitution that empowers the Legislature. 

“The Legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution,” Section 38, Subsection C reads. 

“What about Subsection D?” Justice John Fenn asked. 

“The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement,” Subsection D states. 

“Does that also fit into this reasonable and necessary test?” Fenn asked. 

“No, Your Honor. It does not,” Jerde said. 

Later, Justice Kari Gray pressed Jerde about when life begins. 

“Do the courts get to determine when there’s viability? Does the Legislature? It’s an unsettled area of the law. There’s no consensus. Not secular consensus, not religious consensus on when life begins. So who gets to decide when life begins?” Gray asked. 

That’s up to the Legislature, Jerde said, “because they’re the most answerable to the people.”

Representing the plaintiffs, attorney Peter Modlin pushed back on the argument that health care decisions are not a fundamental right. 

“The question presented in this case is whether the state Legislature may deprive pregnant women of their fundamental constitutional rights for the duration of their pregnancy,” Modlin said. “The state’s position is that the Legislature has plenary authority to dictate to pregnant women what health care choices are available to them. We urge the court to reject this and find the laws unconstitutional.”

“What about the slippery slope?” Fenn asked Modlin later in the hearing. 

“‘Health care decisions’ is a broad term, and if we determine that’s a fundamental right, it seems to me that there’s all kinds of — health care is a heavily regulated industry. It opens Pandora’s box on what is health care and what regulation can be made. Medical marijuana — I mean, you just go check down the list of so many different things that are reasonably regulated that this might turn that upside down,” Fenn said. 

“We would respectfully disagree,” Modlin said.

“Your Honor, we looked, and the state looked as well, for another example of a law that prohibited a specific medical procedure, you couldn’t find one. And neither could the state. These laws are truly unique,” he said.

Marci Bramlet, another attorney for the plaintiffs, reiterated this point in her arguments, citing the fact that “there is no correlating limitation on a man’s right to make health care decisions, especially reproductive health care decisions.”

“But a man is not similarly situated,” Gray responded. “Equal protection requires similarly situated individuals.” 

Outside the courtroom

Abortion rights advocates gathered in front of the Wyoming Supreme Court for around an hour before the proceedings. A group of perhaps three dozen people, mostly women and some men, wore green and stood quietly holding signs. They did not engage in any chanting or shouting — an organizer told WyoFile they did not want to give the impression of trying to intimidate or sway either people entering the courtroom or the justices inside.

Among them was Dr. Giovannina Anthony, a Jackson provider who is one of the plaintiffs in both ongoing legal disputes over abortion. Anthony told WyoFile that the new laws have forced her to provide transvaginal ultrasounds to three women in recent months. 

Clients have come to Anthony through Just The Pill, a company that provides abortion medications by mail. State law requires them to receive an ultrasound 48 hours before receiving the abortion medication. There’s no medical reason for the procedure, Anthony told WyoFile, but she has to follow the law. 

“I apologize to the patient for a probe in the vagina that is not necessary and doesn’t improve patient safety,” she said. “It makes me feel like an agent of the state, not a doctor.”

Abortion providers, including Anthony and Wellspring, the Casper clinic, have been waiting on a Natrona County judge’s action on a proposed injunction against the law mandating the ultrasound, which the Legislature passed earlier this year. That case is likely to proceed regardless of the Wyoming Supreme Court’s decision on the abortion bans, because that proceeding focuses on the regulation of abortion, rather than an outright ban.

The ultrasound requirement, Anthony said, is invasive, adds extra costs and an extra logistical hurdle for women seeking an abortion. But it’s not going to dissuade them, she said. In 30 years of practice, Anthony has never seen an ultrasound change a woman’s mind about an abortion. 

“Women who want to end their pregnancy are going to end their pregnancy,” the doctor said, “no matter what.” 

That’s a worry that drew Wendy Volk, a longtime Cheyenne realtor and outspoken women’s rights activist, to join the group standing in front of the Wyoming Supreme Court. 

Volk cited the well-publicized deaths of pregnant women in Texas and Georgia who had sought abortions in those strictly limited states. “Women are dying because of abortion bans,” she said. She fears a ban in Wyoming would put women here in similarly unsafe situations. 

But Volk was optimistic the Wyoming Supreme Court would uphold the Teton County judge’s choice. She believes the state’s constitution protects women’s rights to the health care of their choosing. “That is the Wyoming way,” she said. 

Cheyenne-based psychologist Sarah Courtright shared Volk’s optimism for the outcome. She didn’t see how the state’s attorneys could reconcile the protections for personal health care choices with a ban on abortion, she said. She also pointed to lawmakers’ recent drive to make sure adult Wyomingites can’t be forced to take a vaccine — a response by conservative lawmakers to the government’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“What are they even going to be able to say?” she asked of the ban’s proponents. 

RELATED

Gordon taps Attorney General Bridget Hill for Wyoming Supreme Court seat

Casper abortion clinic remains in limbo as judge mulls temporary halt to new regulations

Those opposing the ban lined one side of the sidewalk that led up to the courthouse entrance. But on the other side of the sidewalk — where one could envision a line of counterprotestors — there was just green grass. 

Inside the courtroom, however, advocates for ending abortion filled a number of the benches. Only one sitting member of the Legislature, conservative Cheyenne Republican Rep. Gary Brown, attended the hearing. But the religious-driven political faction that has pushed the abortion bans held a “Pray for Life” livestream last week, in which they prayed for a favorable outcome to Wednesday’s hearing. 

“We know that life is of infinite value,” Nathan Winters began the livestream. Winters, a former lawmaker and president of the Wyoming Family Alliance, a conservative Christian organization, said people were gathering virtually to “pray for wisdom and pray for Wyoming’s future.” 

Winters was followed by former Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Keith Kautz, who left the bench in May. 

“To our great shame, Father, we have decided that an unborn child made in your image isn’t a child at all, but merely an unidentified tissue of potential life that may be destroyed and killed even though we know it is alive,” he said during his prayer remarks. “We are becoming enslaved to unthinkable corruption and immorality.”

Speaker of the House and prominent anti-abortion crusader Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, also spoke, as did Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Torrington. 

“I just want us to really realize how important what we’re really doing here is,” Neiman said. “We are standing in the gap for people who can’t have a voice.”

The court will now take the arguments made during the hearing under advisement before publishing a written decision that’s expected sometime later this year.

The post Wyoming Supreme Court mulls constitutionality of state’s abortion bans appeared first on WyoFile .

University of Wyoming officials omitted notable internal findings from their official public response to the demotion of a well-liked dean and the ensuing public outrage earlier this month, newly-released records show. 

When the Board of Trustees demoted Dean Cameron Wright, they said it was because of poor performance towards the state’s goal of bringing the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences into the top tier of such schools nationally. 

Wright’s supporters, however, argued Wright’s demotion was instead retaliation for his opposition to UW President Ed Seidel’s efforts to shift $500,000 from the engineering school into the budget of the School of Computing. That school is a Seidel initiative directed by the president’s romantic partner, Gabrielle Allen. 

As furor in the campus community mounted and university officials defended the demotion, they cited an investigation conducted last October by the university’s Office of General Counsel. That review found that Seidel had not violated any conflict of interest rules in advocating for his partner’s college. 

The university shared that finding with reporters amid the controversy. But, records released Tuesday show the university’s statement left out another finding — that Seidel’s involvement in shaping the School of Computing’s budget and policy could lead to “reputational harm” to the president, his partner and the university.

And while university officials noted the board had “unanimously agreed” that Seidel hadn’t violated a conflict of interest plan governing his actions with the school, that wasn’t the entire story either. The complete record shows some trustees were concerned about the situation. 

“A minority of the Board strongly feels that the perception of a [Conflict of Interest] and the appearance of impropriety is just as damaging and needs to be mindfully addressed,” reads a Jan. 24 document outlining the board’s response to the review.  

University officials on Tuesday stood by their previous statements.

“In drafting the university’s [April 3] statement – done in a short period of time in response to reporter questions, and summarizing voluminous records you have now seen – there was no intent to leave out meaningful information,” UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin wrote to WyoFile on Tuesday. “The statement also pointed out that further information would be disclosed in response to a public records request.”

Incomplete picture? 

Strikingly, the university’s public statement, first provided to WyoFile on April 3, left out those two findings but quoted friendlier conclusions that came directly before them. 

On Tuesday, the school released the complete records, with some redactions, in response to a request first filed by the Laramie Reporter, an online news organization. Those records show the omissions in the university’s April 3 statement.

In that statement, school officials wrote: 

“The University found that since the President did not direct additional finances to [the School of Computing], nor did he affect or direct any academic policy other than to reinforce the original budget and intent of the [computing school], there is likely not an actual violation of the President’s COI plan.”

That sentence comes from the office of general counsel’s analysis. The complete paragraph is as follows [emphasis inserted by WyoFile highlights the omitted findings]:

“Since the President did not direct additional finances to [the School of Computing] SOC, nor did he affect or direct any academic policy other than to reinforce the original budget and intent of the SOC, there is likely not an actual violation of the President’s COI plan. However, his continued involvement could lead to a potential or apparent conflict of interest and cause reputational harm to the President, Director Allen, and the University.”

The university’s statement continued:

“The Board of Trustees unanimously agreed that the President has not violated his [conflict of interest] Management Plan and strongly supports the mission and vision of the [School of Computing] as a means to carry out its land grant mission, enhance the Tier 1 Engineering initiative, provide for interdisciplinary teaching, research, service, and innovation opportunities across all colleges, and boost student success.”

That sentence came from the conclusion section of the board’s response to the conflict of interest review. The complete paragraph is as follows [emphasis inserted by WyoFile highlights the omitted findings]:

“The Board unanimously agrees that the President has not violated his [conflict of interest] Management Plan and strongly supports the mission and vision of the [School of Computing] as a means to carry out its land grant mission, enhance the Tier 1 Engineering initiative, provide for interdisciplinary teaching, research, service, and innovation opportunities across all colleges, and boost student success. A majority of the Board maintains that there is also no apparent conflict of interest and contends that the President should be able to discuss [School of Computing] as an initiative, whether or not his partner is the Director. However, a minority of the Board strongly feels that perception of a [conflict of interest] and the appearance of impropriety is just as damaging and needs to be mindfully addressed and reaffirms the University’s recommendation that the President refrain from any involvement with [School of Computing] while his partner is the Director.”

The dissent did not change the relevant conclusion of the board’s findings, Baldwin said Tuesday. “The records do note that some trustees had been concerned about the potential appearance of a conflict, but that’s not the same as concluding [Seidel] had violated the conflict plan,” he said. 

Last November, the month after the general counsel completed its review, Allen told the board she would stop directing the computing school in August 2025. The decision came “after months of sustained reputational attacks,” she wrote in an April 7 letter to UW faculty senate leaders that was obtained by WyoFile.

Trustee response

The vote to demote Wright came after a closed-door executive session, so there’s no public record on whether the board was united in its choice, or whether the split captured in the conflict of interest review carried into that meeting. The board’s vote was unanimous, without public discussion. Amid the consternation over Wright’s demotion, the board has presented a united front. 

Trustees also downplayed Wright’s objections to Seidel’s proposed transfer of $500,000 from the engineering college’s control to the computing school. Seidel dropped that proposal after Wright objected.

“We reiterate that the decision to remove the dean was based solely on his performance — not on the dean’s objections to a possible, relatively minor proposed funding shift,” the trustees said in an April 8 statement. 

Events of the last two weeks appear to justify the concerns of those trustees who feared even the perception of a conflict of interest could damage the university. Since Wright was demoted and news of his opposition to the $500,000 transfer broke — including the existence of a letter from two Laramie lawmakers last fall to Gov. Mark Gordon, expressing concern about retaliation against Wright — two major donors to the university have publicly announced they are reconsidering their financial support. 

On campus, the deans of the university’s other colleges, except Allen, wrote a letter to Seidel and the trustees expressing “deep concern for the trajectory of the university.” On April 7, an overwhelming majority of the faculty senate backed a vote of “no confidence” in Seidel’s leadership. 

In response to those actions, the trustees last week announced the formation of a new committee to examine and propose solutions to the crisis of confidence in leadership. 

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the board’s procedures in demoting Wright. —Ed.

The post Records show University of Wyoming officials omitted conflict of interest concerns in public response appeared first on WyoFile .

The judiciary holds too much power and Congress should curb its authority, Wyoming’s federal delegation argued in response to Equality State lawyers and retired judges who called on them to defend “American Rule of Law” from attacks by President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk.

In an April 11 letter, Rep. Harriet Hageman and Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis said the federal judiciary has drawn scrutiny on itself. “Unelected judges imposing their policy biases on our nation without democratic legitimacy are the root cause of today’s controversy,” they wrote. 

The politicians largely sidestepped the central tenet of an open letter signed by more than 100 Wyoming lawyers and retired judges and published late last month. That letter had called on Hageman, Barrasso and Lummis to condemn an increase in personal attacks and calls for impeachment led by the president and his allies on federal judges who issue court decisions they dislike.

The Wyoming jurists who signed that missive focused on Trump’s calls to impeach specific judges who ruled against his policies, and social media posts by Musk calling a judge’s ruling an “attempted coup,” among other criticisms. 

The letter also cited threats of violence against judges, a phenomenon U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has said is on the rise. It also noted Trump’s efforts to target law firms he doesn’t like. “These attacks are part of a growing effort to discredit, not just judges, but seemingly the American Rule of Law,” the letter stated. 

The delegation’s response does not mention the president, Musk or threats of violence against judges. 

Instead, Barrasso, Lummis and Hageman wrote that “the country is witnessing a healthy debate right now about the appropriate role of judges,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by WyoFile. The federal lawmakers also cited legislation they were cosponsoring to eliminate judges’ authority to issue nationwide injunctions on actions by the federal government. 

“I think the delegation sort of missed the point,” former Wyoming governor and longtime attorney Mike Sullivan told WyoFile on Monday. “This was not a partisan effort. This is a legitimate, serious and what I think is a constitutional concern about the judiciary and the rule of law.”

Last week, House Republicans including Hageman passed the No Rogue Rulings Act, which would curb judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions. Republican lawmakers did so in response to a series of court rulings against aspects of Trump’s agenda — particularly elements of his mass deportation effort that judges found could violate peoples’ civil rights, and parts of the Musk-driven effort to cut budgets and staffing levels across the federal government. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has introduced a similar measure in the Senate.

“Both the legislative and the executive branches are rightfully using their constitutional checks and balances to address judicial overreach,” Hageman, Barrasso and Lummis wrote in their letter.

In their letter, the Wyoming jurists told Lummis, Barrasso and Hageman the U.S. Constitution called on them to defend the judiciary from attacks, even if those attacks come from other branches of government. 

“As our elected federal representatives—and as required by your own oaths—we thus urge you to publicly condemn these threats, affirm judicial independence, and remind Americans that appeals—not violence, intimidation, or invitations to lawlessness—are the constitutional remedy for undesired court decisions,” the letter read. 

Though the delegation in its letter described a bipartisan drive for judicial reform, the No Rogue Rulings Act did not draw any support from Democrats in the House and will likely die in the Senate, where it won’t be able to garner 60 votes, according to a report in Politico.

Lummis, Barrasso and Hageman expressed pique at the letter authors’ choice of an open letter. Among the letter’s more noted signees were former Gov. Mike Sullivan; retired Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justices Marilyn Kite, Michael Golden, Michael Davis and E. James Burke; retired U.S. District Court Chief Judge William Downes and former Wyoming Attorneys General Gay Woodhouse and Patrick Crank. 

(WyoFile board member Susan Stubson also signed on. She was not involved in the production of this report, and neither she nor any member of the WyoFile board have authority to direct news coverage or news content.)

Many of those attorneys are retired from public office and working in private practice, if not retired entirely. The jurists appear to have sought a public discussion, concluding their letter with: “We welcome your earliest public response to these very serious concerns.”

But the federal delegates said the more than 100 signees should have reached out as individuals.

“We are disappointed you failed to express your concerns with us directly before rushing to publish your letter,” they wrote. “A robust discussion about addressing the challenges and concerns facing our nation would be more beneficial than attempting to score political points through the press.” 

WyoFile reached out to signees of the original letter but did not receive a comment on the delegation’s response by early Monday afternoon. This story will be updated if that changes. 

Sullivan noted that the Wyoming attorneys published their letter in the wake of a highly unusual statement by Chief Justice Roberts, who protested Trump’s call for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg. Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment after the judge issued a ruling momentarily halting one of Trump’s most controversial deportation policies. Judges are not politicians, Sullivan said, “and when they come down in a way that doesn’t agree with your position they shouldn’t be demeaned or defamed or threatened with impeachment.”

Those signing the letter have an obligation to maintain judicial independence, as does the delegation, the former governor said.

“This is a group that believes this ought to be a public discussion,” Sullivan said. “We have our own constitutional obligations as members of the bar, practicing before the judiciary, and we shouldn’t just sit back and let this happen. 

The post Called on to defend the rule of law, Wyoming’s delegation says judges, not Trump, are the problem appeared first on WyoFile .

A second major donor to the University of Wyoming told WyoFile he will reconsider giving to the school out of consternation over the demotion of the engineering college’s dean.

On April 2, the day the university announced Dean Cameron Wright’s demotion, engineer and inventor Alan “Gene” Humphrey wrote the trustees and UW President Ed Seidel, asking them to reverse course. Describing himself as a donor of more than $2 million through direct contributions, scholarships and support to UW students through his 9H Research Foundation, Humphrey is an alumni and owner of a sprawling ranch in Albany and Goshen counties that shares its name with the foundation. 

“It is with this deep investment that I must express my strong disagreement with the decision to relieve Dr. Cameron Wright — or as he is known to everyone, Cam — of his role as Dean,” Humphrey wrote in his letter. In the letter, he did not announce any pause on his philanthropy.

In response to a question from WyoFile this week, however, Humphrey said his giving was now in question.

“Cam’s leadership made us comfortable in our philanthropy, and future funding is being reevaluated in light of this questionable demotion decision,” he wrote. His statement came Wednesday, a day after the board of trustees announced it would establish a committee to respond to a week of turmoil in the campus community that followed Wright’s demotion. 

In that announcement, the board also doubled down on its argument that Wright was fired because of performance issues in advancing a long-held university goal to push the engineering college into the top tier of such schools nationally. Critics of the decision have argued Wright was in fact demoted for his opposition to a plan by Seidel to push funding toward the School of Computing, a program that has been one of the president’s flagship initiatives and is directed by his romantic partner, Gabrielle Allen.

“We reiterate that the decision to remove the dean was based solely on his performance — not on the dean’s objections to a possible, relatively minor proposed funding shift,” the trustees said in a Tuesday statement. 

Wright felt so strongly that the funding shift would violate the intent of the Wyoming Legislature that he brought a personal attorney to a meeting to discuss it. His supporters have argued that until this month, when Wright was sharply questioned at a board of trustees meeting, that trustees had not taken issue with his progress toward the “Tier 1” goal.

Minutes from prior trustee meetings show Wright updated the board as recently as this past November on progress toward that goal, and he does not appear to have been met with questions or criticisms then. 

At a meeting the year before, a trustee commended Wright’s progress and his stewardship of state funding. “Trustee John McKinley thanked Wright for the report and commended the appropriate use of state funding to move the Tier I Engineering Initiative in the direction initially envisioned,” the minutes from the November 2023 meeting read. 

The 9H Research Foundation’s reevaluation follows a pause in funding announced last week by the John P. Ellbogen Foundation, another major donor to the engineering college and other components of the university. That foundation said it would not consider any applications for new grants from the school until it sees signs that restore its confidence in leadership. 

“The manner and lack of transparency in which business was conducted diminishes the confidence and trust that are foundational to our commitments as a donor,” a letter signed by the Ellbogen Foundation’s board read. 

On Thursday, the Ellbogen Foundation’s president told WyoFile the trustees’ response had not altered the organization’s position. “We’re not changing any plans at this time,” Mary Ellbogen Garland said. 

“We just want to know that there’s transparency and we want to feel confidence and trust in our grant making,” she told WyoFile in a previous interview. 

(The John P. Ellbogen Foundation is a funder of WyoFile. Funders are not involved in WyoFile’s editorial decisions.) 

Wright’s demotion sparked a furor on campus that could take some time to abate. It drew an outraged response from other college deans, who expressed “deep concern for the trajectory of the university.” And, for the first time in recent memory, the dissatisfaction sparked a vote of no confidence in Seidel’s leadership by an overwhelming majority of the faculty senate. 

The board has not backed down. In their statement Thursday, the trustees cemented their support of Seidel, saying he had their “unanimous support.” 

University of Wyoming spokesperson Chad Baldwin told WyoFile the administration could not state whether other donors or foundations had pulled back over the last week. “At this time, we’re not able to provide details on the considerations of specific donors,” he said. 

“We know that changes in leadership can sometimes lead to reflection and dialogue among UW’s philanthropic partners,” Baldwin said. “While we don’t speak on behalf of individual donors or foundations, the university remains committed to maintaining open lines of communication and working constructively through any questions or concerns that may arise.”

The post Second major donor ‘reevaluates’ support for University of Wyoming appeared first on WyoFile .

Rising furor over the controversial demotion of a University of Wyoming engineering dean has brought the state’s only public four-year university to a tipping point.  

Academic leaders, donors and others decried the demotion as emblematic of a culture of top-down and inscrutable decision making by the UW Board of Trustees and President Ed Seidel. 

Twelve college deans signed a letter expressing “deep concern for the trajectory” of the university — citing the dean’s demotion and mounting pressures on academic freedom. 

And on Monday, the faculty senate overwhelmingly delivered a vote of no confidence in Seidel, the first such vote in recent memory. 

The outrage appeared strong enough to threaten Seidel’s leadership. Professors and deans expressed hope for lasting change to leadership that, according to the faculty senate, has driven the departure of talented academics and made replacing them difficult — ultimately threatening the learning experience for students. 

The gravity of the moment was not lost on Seidel, he told the trustees Tuesday morning, reading from a written statement before they entered a closed-door meeting without him. 

“How we handle this pivotal moment is important for the future of the institution,” Seidel said, “which is clearly facing a crisis.”

After an hour and a half behind closed doors, the board reemerged and issued its response. They will form a committee to study the issue. 

The committee will include two trustees, and most likely one faculty member, one staff member, one student government member, Seidel and the provost, board chairman Kermit Brown said. “That committee will be charged with working on communications and working on ideas to more fully engage shared governance in the university,” he said.

Neither a timeline nor the new committee’s authority were discussed. The trustees are also crafting a “formal statement,” Brown said, “with regard to the current state of affairs and the work of the [new] committee.” That press release will be vetted by the university’s legal department before its release, trustees said. 

The trustees had not published the statement by 6 p.m. Tuesday. 

The trustees did not raise the prospect of imposing consequences on Seidel for losing the faculty’s trust. His current contract extends through the summer of 2026. Nor did the trustees address the underlying issues that sparked furor following Dean Cameron Wright’s demotion — most notably the allegations lobbed across campus that it was a retaliation for Wright’s opposition to funds being shifted from his budget to that of Seidel’s romantic partner, who heads UW’s new School of Computing. 

Faculty senate members considered their vote a risky endeavor. Though many of them are tenured professors, they conducted yesterday’s meeting mostly in a closed session so that senators could feel safe speaking against university leadership. Once the meeting opened to the public, votes on the no-confidence resolution were issued by hand-written paper ballots to avoid any hand raising or spoken votes. 

“You are justified in fearing retribution from this administration,” Bob Sprague, a former chair of the faculty senate, wrote in a letter to the body ahead of its Monday vote. But he also urged senators to “speak truth to power and send a clear message to the entire University community that this administration’s conduct is not acceptable.” 

The faculty senate ultimately voted 43 to 11 to back a resolution that declared Seidel’s leadership “unacceptable,” though it did not call for him to be removed. Instead, in a final paragraph — referenced by Brown when he announced the new committee — it called for the administration and campus to work together to “reestablish an atmosphere of mutual respect, to rebuild trust and a willingness to work together.”

On Tuesday, faculty members returned to a campus Seidel will remain in charge of for the foreseeable future. During a campus town hall the president hosted yesterday, Seidel rejected any suggestions he would retaliate. 

“I am absolutely against any form of retaliatory action,” he said at that event, according to a report in Oil City News. “I’ve been very, very clear about that. And I do not want to ever have any kind of a retaliation against someone for speaking their mind.” 

After days of impassioned statements and letters from his critics, Tuesday appeared relatively quiet following the morning board meeting. Ray Fertig, the faculty senate president, did not respond to WyoFile voicemails requesting comment.

Two outspoken former faculty members, and Democratic Laramie lawmaker Karlee Provenza — who has criticized Seidel’s advocacy for the School of Computing and his conciliatory approach to the Legislature’s efforts to meddle with campus — told WyoFile the trustees’ response fell flat. 

“They don’t have a really genuine, authentic response to anything is what it feels like,” Provenza said. She hoped faculty and deans would continue to push for change if they wanted something beyond the new committee, she said.

“One choice is ‘aw shucks, I didn’t get what I wanted, I don’t have any power in this situation,’” Provenza said. “But I think the other option is we have to build our power. There are more levers of power for faculty, for deans, and I encourage them to exercise those rights.” 

Sprague and former president of the faculty senate, now-retired veterinary professor Donal O’Toole both noted that the committee, as Brown described it, appeared stacked toward the administration and the trustees, with just two faculty representatives and one student on a seven-person body. 

“They will put forward probably some very watered down recommendations that ultimately will be ignored,” Sprague said. Ultimately, he feared the episode will lead to “no substantial improvement to the situation on campus,” and the trustees, he said, will “rationalize [faculty] unhappiness in various ways.” 

O’Toole agreed that the trustees had opted for a tepid, middle-of-the-road path. “Seidel is a known quantity,” he said, “and [in the wake of criticism] he’s certainly saying all the right things.” 

Beginning last week, when the faculty senate leadership expressed dismay in his leadership ahead of the full body’s vote, Seidel has been conciliatory and said he has learned from the uproar. In several statements and in yesterday’s town hall, he promised to renew his commitment to the university’s model of “shared governance,” which, notably, calls for faculty input on the removal of academic officers. 

Faculty members say that part of the university’s governing code was firmly ignored when the board demoted Wright. The board demoted Wright even though every department head in his college — with the exception of school of computing head Gabrielle Allen, Seidel’s partner — called on them not to. 

Coming back from a no-confidence resolution to a place where the campus is working well together will be very hard to do, O’Toole said. 

“On the one hand, I think the faculty senate executive committee thought this had to be done,” he said. “On the other hand, they realized that in the short and medium term it’s going to make dealing with Seidel’s administration pretty frosty … The feeling is ‘we’ve sent the message, let’s hope for the best.’”

The post University of Wyoming trustees keep President Seidel, form committee to address turmoil appeared first on WyoFile .

The University of Wyoming’s faculty senate overwhelmingly delivered a vote of no confidence Monday against President Ed Seidel’s leadership, as fallout from the controversial demotion of a popular dean continued to spread across the campus community. 

The resolution, passed by a vote of 43 to 11, declared Seidel’s leadership “unacceptable” to the body that represents the university’s professors. 

But Seidel’s future will ultimately be decided by the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees, a body appointed by the governor. The board has made no public indication it’s considering a change to Seidel’s leadership of Wyoming’s only four-year public university. On Monday, the board announced it would meet Tuesday morning in a closed session to discuss a personnel matter, but did not indicate what would be discussed. 

Seidel has led the university since July 2020. Though spurred by the demotion of College of Engineering and Physical Sciences Dean Cameron Wright, the faculty senate’s resolution expressed a distrust going back years, that centered on the removal of deans, provosts and other academic leaders without public input or explanation. 

“The President’s lack of leadership and loss of faculty trust has resulted in significant impacts on campus,” the resolution read. “These have included serious declines in morale resulting in good faculty leaving, programs struggling to provide capacity and content, research agendas being paused or abandoned, and the quality of education declining as we struggle to hire high quality faculty to put into classrooms.”

According to members of the faculty senate, it is the first such vote in recent memory. One former member of the senate suggested the body last delivered a no-confidence vote against a University of Wyoming president in the 1970s. 

Dean’s demotion spurred outrage

University officials, including the board of trustees and the school’s administration, have said Wright was demoted because he failed to achieve an ambitious but long-running goal of bringing the engineering college into the nation’s top tier of such institutions. 

At a board of trustees meeting just before Wright’s demotion, trustees implied he had not sufficiently moved the school toward that goal and did not appear to have a plan to do so. 

But Wright’s supporters, who are considerable on and off campus, contend he was removed as dean because he challenged an effort by Seidel to shift $500,000 in funding over to the new School of Computing. That school, which has been housed within the engineering college but is becoming its own independent entity, is headed by Seidel’s romantic partner, Gabrielle Allen. 

On Friday, faculty senate leaders announced they would move for a vote of no confidence in Seidel. 

Besides faculty, Wright’s dismissal also drew outraged responses from industry professionals who advise the engineering college. One major giver to UW, The John P. Ellbogen Foundation, announced a pause to any new grants to the university based on its concerns over how Wright was demoted. 

(The Ellbogen Foundation also funds WyoFile, but does not have any influence in editorial decision making.) 

Also on Friday, the deans of the university’s 12 other colleges — exempting only Allen — wrote the board and Seidel to express their own “deep concern for the trajectory of the University of Wyoming.” That letter highlighted issues beyond last week’s controversial demotion. In it, deans described a campus in a pressure cooker. UW has been caught between a national and state-level Republican backlash against institutes of higher learning, and a campus community often frustrated by changes brought on by that shift in politics.

State lawmakers have criticized its diversity efforts and gender studies program. Legislators, particularly those in the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, have challenged UW’s funding and ability to craft its own programming and regulate the carrying of guns on campus. This year, the Legislature banned spending on diversity, equity and inclusion-related programming. 

Amid those rough waters, Seidel and the trustees have made fundamental choices without consulting their campus, the deans said.

“Recent policy changes — touching on fundamental issues, such as equal opportunity, academic freedom, and even insurance allocations — have been enacted without appropriate consultation and respect for shared governance,” the deans wrote. 

Some on campus and around the state have criticized Seidel for seeking to work with the conservative lawmakers, instead of demonstrating stauncher opposition to meddling with the campus. 

President sought to ward off no-confidence vote

Seidel began the week on the defensive, sending out a 7:10 a.m. campus-wide email Monday in which he sought to ward off the no-confidence vote. The embattled president announced a hastily organized town hall and meetings with the college deans as well as any individual university community members who wanted a chance to speak with him. 

The president wrote to “affirm” his respect for shared university governance, transparency and a collaborative atmosphere, he said. “I ask that we take a moment to pause and reflect,” ahead of the no-confidence vote, which was scheduled to take place that afternoon, he wrote. “The issues at hand are complex and deserve thoughtful discussion.”

University officials have countered the prevailing view among faculty upset over Wright’s demotion — that it was, in fact, the result of a retaliatory push from Seidel — by saying Wright had performance issues and, principally, that he had failed to achieve Tier-1 status for the engineering college. But they have also cited a state law that prevents governing bodies like the Board of Trustees from discussing personnel decisions in public. 

In Monday’s message, Seidel also noted that statute, while acknowledging the secrecy may not be helping school officials assuage those outraged by Wright’s demotion. 

“Simply stating that decisions were well-considered is not enough to build or maintain trust,” he wrote. But, he continued, “while I may have insight into the details behind recent and past actions, the legal restraints surrounding personnel actions severely limit what I can say publicly.” 

But following a series of mysterious demotions of prominent school officials, including that of previous president Laurie Nichols, trust in the trustees and school administration is low on campus. Since last week, Seidel had learned of “deeper and pent-up concerns about shared governance” on campus, he said.

Former provost questions official account

Wright resisted the effort to shift money into the computing school’s control as it branched out from the engineering college last fall. On Monday, an account from a former provost involved in that debate revealed the level of contentiousness tied to the dispute. 

Last August, Wright brought his attorney to a meeting with the university’s general counsel where the budget dispute was discussed, according to an account written by former provost Kevin Carman, who was also present at the meeting. After that meeting, university leadership backed off their demand for a budget transfer.

Carman sent his account Monday morning to Seidel, board of trustee chairman Kermit Brown and other officials. WyoFile obtained a copy of it once it was circulated to members of the faculty senate ahead of their afternoon meeting. 

The former provost was himself dismissed under mysterious circumstances last fall, around the time of the funding dispute. 

As uproar over Wright’s demotion grew last week, university officials stated they had conducted a review into whether the president had demonstrated any conflict of interest during the push to move $500,000 into the permanent control of his partner’s college. That review concluded with a finding that Seidel did not violate a conflict of interest agreement governing his approach toward the school headed by his partner. 

In Monday’s email, Carman argued university officials were “misleading and factually incorrect” in their description of the events.

In a statement provided to WyoFile on April 3, university officials wrote that it was Carman who asked Wright and Allen to sign the agreement shifting the money to the computing school’s budget. 

But the university didn’t tell the whole story in that case, Carman wrote. When sending the agreement out for signatures, “I was following a direct order from Pres. Seidel,” Carman wrote. 

He quoted what he said was a July 2024 email from Seidel in which the president ordered Carman to pursue the agreement: “This should be finalized and signed by Sept 15, 2024. You need to have this and to be able to argue why this benefits [the engineering college],” Carman said Seidel wrote. 

The University of Wyoming communications office did not immediately respond to a request for a response to Carman’s account Monday evening. 

In a Monday night statement to WyoFile, a university spokesperson defended the school’s account of events as “factual and confirmed with emails and verified accounts.”

The spokesperson also confirmed that Seidel had ordered Carman to pursue the budget agreement with Wright. “The university’s original response was not an attempt to mislead, and our statement was not meant to exclude the president’s direction,” the statement from spokesperson Chad Baldwin read. 

The post No confidence: University of Wyoming faculty senate rejects leadership of embattled president appeared first on WyoFile .

The University of Wyoming’s demotion of a popular dean this week unleashed widespread criticism toward President Ed Seidel, including accusations he retaliated against the administrator for questioning a funding shift to a department led by Seidel’s romantic partner.

On Tuesday, the university announced that Cameron Wright, who has led the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences since 2019, would return to teaching and give up the dean role. 

An uproar on and off campus ensued, with anger directed toward both the president and UW’s board of trustees. Faculty leaders have expressed a loss of confidence in the president, industry professionals who advise the engineering college have expressed outrage to the trustees and at least one major charitable foundation, The John P. Ellbogen Foundation, announced it is pausing consideration of any grants to UW due to concerns over the dean’s demotion. 

The decision to demote Wright followed a UW Board of Trustees meeting last week where trustees grilled the dean about progress toward achieving a longstanding goal of the Wyoming Legislature — begun under former Gov. Matt Mead — to elevate the college into the nation’s “Tier-1” echelon of engineering colleges. Trustees in that meeting told Wright they weren’t satisfied with his answers, but it appeared he would have another opportunity to respond in May. 

Wright’s supporters, which include Laramie-based state lawmakers and members of a board that advises the engineering school, believe Seidel might have targeted the dean after he resisted pressure to hand over a portion of his budget last summer to a new department. That department, the School of Computing, is among Seidel’s signature initiatives and is also directed by the president’s romantic partner. Wright, at the time, told administrators he could not shift the funds because the Legislature had specifically allocated them for the Tier-1 engineering initiative.

Anticipating the demotion, the engineering college’s 10 department heads signed a letter Monday calling for Wright to remain dean. “It would be wrong, and harmful to morale, to terminate Dean Wright without substantial justifications and a formal review process.”

Demotion sparks anger

That night, the board of trustees gathered for a hastily called closed-door meeting. In a statement to WyoFile, UW said the board decided to demote Wright in Friday’s executive session. “The decision was made by the Board, not President Seidel or his administration,” the university’s statement read. 

The funding dispute did not drive Wright’s demotion, according to the statement. “The University had several performance reasons for his removal as Dean,” the statement, provided by UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin, read. “The College has not met many of these (Tier 1) goals and he could not articulate a cogent plan to make progress on meeting the goals.”

Wright declined to comment for this story. 

The university announced his demotion Tuesday. 

In response, the faculty senate’s seven-member executive committee accused university leadership of ignoring the institution’s “principle of shared governance,” and said Seidel had lost their trust. 

“UW will not achieve its goals without trust in leadership and a willingness to work together, based on mutual respect,” their statement read. “The President’s seemingly arbitrary actions, unwillingness to listen to others and lack of concern for shared governance has eroded what little trust remained between the faculty and his office and has led to a state where the faculty do not have any confidence in his leadership.”

The letter cites a section of UW regulations stating that removing or hiring academic officers “normally shall involve significant faculty participation,” and accuses the trustees and administration of ignoring that guidance.

In UW’s statement, Seidel offered a measure of conciliation. “Trust is essential, and where my actions or words may have contributed to a loss in that trust, I take responsibility,” he said. “I’m committed to growing our partnership through open dialogue and a renewed focus on shared governance — because we can only achieve our goals if we do it together.”

Outside response

But the fallout to Wright’s demotion hasn’t slowed.

On Tuesday, the John P. Ellbogen Foundation, a major contributor to UW energy research initiatives, among other things, sent a letter to UW informing officials that it would pause the funding review process. The letter, which was obtained by WyoFile, cited “recent leadership decisions made by President Seidel, his advisors and the Board of Trustees, particularly those regarding the dismissal of the Dean of the College of Engineering.” 

“The manner and lack of transparency in which business was conducted diminishes the confidence and trust that are foundational to our commitments as a donor,” the letter, which is signed by the foundation’s board, read. 

Members of the engineering college’s advisory board, which is composed of industry professionals, have also written letters to the trustees decrying the decision. Wright had strong relationships with donors, those private sector engineers said, and the university risked donations beyond those of the Ellbogen Foundation.

“You have destroyed the best thing that had happened to the College of Engineering in the last decade and have alienated many people that have been working hard to make this college the best it can be,” Zia Yasrobi, a board member and Jackson engineer, wrote in a letter to longtime UW trustee and the current board chairman, Kermit Brown. 

Seidel came to the university in July 2020 following a previous mysterious and controversial demotion carried out by the board of trustees — that of former president Laurie Nichols. Trustees refused to explain why they had removed Nichols, a relatively popular administrator, until WyoFile and the Casper Star-Tribune sued for records that revealed a secret investigation into her comportment as president.

Beneath the sudden upwelling of rancor over Wright’s demotion lies frustration with Seidel’s drive to establish a School of Computing, which began within the engineering college and has now been established as an independent entity. Seidel’s partner, Dr. Gabrielle Allen, directs the School of Computing.

Allen’s online biography states she was appointed to the position after a nationwide search. But her appointment has driven “general concern, among faculty and legislators,” state senator and UW professor Chris Rothfuss told WyoFile. “There’s no doubt that [Allen] is qualified for that position but that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to put your partner into the leadership position of your flagship effort at the university.” 

Seidel was not involved in the search that led to Allen’s hiring, according to the university’s statement. Allen has given the university notice that she will end her tenure as director of the School of Computing before the start of the 2025-2026 academic year and return to teaching, the statement reads.

Conflict over budget transfer 

Two state lawmakers who represent Laramie, Rothfuss and Rep. Karlee Provenza, expressed concern last September that Wright would face retaliation for opposing the transfer of $500,000 from the engineering college’s budget to the School of Computing. 

That August, Wright wrote in a memo to the provost that he could not “in good conscience” transfer the money to the School of Computing because the Legislature had dedicated it to the engineering college’s drive to achieve Tier-1 status.“I believe it would be interpreted as being contrary to the intent of the legislature, and would set a troublesome precedent,” Wright wrote. “I believe that in taking that action, there would likely be negative political and financial ramifications for UW.” 

The university has published a “Conflict of Interest Management Plan” that states the funding decisions for the School of Computing will be made by the provost, board of trustees or other administrators and that Seidel generally is removed from major decisions impacting his partner’s employment.

Despite that agreement, Wright wrote that he had discussed the funding change with Seidel both in person and by email, and that the president had pushed for the transfer.

Wright consulted with his advisory board before making that decision, three members of the board told WyoFile. They agreed the money shouldn’t be transferred.

According to Baldwin’s statement, the university reviewed whether Seidel had violated his conflict of interest plan after Wright rebuffed the funding transfer. 

As to whether hiring Allen was a conflict, Baldwin wrote that the university conducted a competitive search for a director of the computing school, and Wright was one of two officials who reviewed applications and ultimately offered the job to Allen. Seidel was not involved in the process, he added. 

The university’s subsequent review of the funding dispute found that the request to shift the $500,000 was prepared in collaboration with the university’s budget department, and disputed Wright’s contention that it violated the Legislature’s intent for the money. 

“The $500,000 was always devoted to Tier 1 goals and was always designed to be part of the [College of Engineering] budget,” the statement read.

In September, the administration dropped the request to shift the $500,000, and, according to Thursday’s statement, Wright agreed that the money could be used for “joint hires” with the School of Computing. 

“The University found that since the President did not direct additional finances to SOC, nor did he affect or direct any academic policy other than to reinforce the original budget and intent of the SOC, there is likely not an actual violation of the President’s [Conflict of Interest] plan,” Baldwin wrote. That finding was backed by the trustees. 

Politicians weigh in

A month after Wright’s August memo, Rothfuss and Provenza wrote Gov. Mark Gordon and asked him to monitor funding for the engineering college to see that it stayed true to the Legislature’s intent. They also asked Gordon to protect Wright’s job. “We are deeply concerned about any potential retaliation against Dean Wright for standing firm on these principles,” they wrote.

Though Wright’s demotion came seven months after his memo, Rothfuss said he believes it remains the driving force behind the move. 

“In my view, it is exactly what I was concerned about along with Rep. Provenza,” he told WyoFile on Wednesday. “I think there was a desire at that point to terminate [Wright]. It was paused until an alternative explanation could be generated.” 

Yasrobi, the advisory board member, shared that view. “It’s a cover,” he said of the university’s statement this week. Wright, he said, had stabilized and advanced the engineering college after years of turmoil. “The things that have happened during his tenure there are amazing,” he said. 

The administration’s determination to establish the School of Computing has sapped resources from the drive for a Tier-1 engineering school, Rothfuss said, “which is literally and precisely what [Wright] was concerned about.” In that light, the criticisms trustees levied at Wright over the progress on that initiative and the public explanation for his demotion are “truly absurd,” Rothfuss said.

In a statement to WyoFile, Gordon appeared to stand by the university’s decision. 

“Changes in any team can be disruptive and I recognize how especially difficult it is to see the departure of Dean Wright,” he said. “On a personal level, my heart goes out to a friend as it does to all those who benefited from his tenure at the University – students, staff, and fellow faculty. As an ex-officio of the Board of Trustees, I have monitored developments in this unfortunate issue. I am confident this difficult step was not taken without extensive and thorough deliberation by all involved.”

The Legislature has grown increasingly socially conservative during Seidel’s tenure, and UW is a target of lawmakers who’ve criticized its diversity efforts and gender studies program. Lawmakers, particularly those in the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, have challenged its funding and ability to craft its own programming and regulate the carrying of guns on campus. 

This year, the Legislature banned spending on diversity, equity and inclusion-related programming. 

Seidel has not opposed those demands as vociferously as many in Laramie would like, Provenza said.

Rothfuss noted that because Wright was dismissed a month after the Legislature adjourned, lawmakers won’t be able to weigh in immediately. But he said it’s clear that a reservoir of frustration with Seidel’s leadership has now burst to the surface. 

“This was a poor decision,” Rothfuss said. “It is pouring gasoline on the embers of a fire.” 

Editor’s note: The John P. Ellbogen Foundation is a funder of WyoFile. The organization has no involvement in WyoFile’s editorial decisions.

The post Demotion of popular dean unleashes anger at University of Wyoming president, trustees appeared first on WyoFile .

When Al Simpson walked into the Wyoming State Capitol on Jan. 12, 1965 as a newly elected Park County representative, he began a political run that carried him into the halls of national power and the immortality of the history books.

On Thursday, he entered the statehouse for the final time. A six-soldier honor guard, sidestepping and shuffling with military precision, carried his flag-draped casket as they navigated the challenging right angles of the building’s north entrance. 

After Thursday morning’s ceremony attended by family, dignitaries and well wishers, Simpson’s casket was left to receive visitors under the Capitol’s rotunda. Though the casket remained closed, military ritual dictates that the stars of the American flag are draped over the senator’s left shoulder, meaning his visage, beneath the lid, faced upward at the ornate stained glass of the rotunda ceiling high above him. 

Keeping Simpson company through the night from their alcoves on the Capitol’s third floor were The Four Sisters, bronze allegories sculpted for the building’s renovation, completed in 2019. The four figures are named Courage, Hope, Truth and Justice. 

“It is fitting they should stand watch over Sen. Simpson,” Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justice Kate Fox told mourners Thursday morning, “as he dedicated his life to those four virtues.” 

Truth, Justice and Courage are sculpted with faces pointed downward, gaze fixed toward his coffin. Truth held a lantern out over Simpson, and Courage raised her hand in greeting. Hope did not look down on the senator: She was sculpted with her face thrust upward. 

Simpson, who died March 14 at age 93, lay under mortal supervision as well. Throughout the roughly 30 hours he lay in state, from around 9 a.m. Thursday until his scheduled removal at 2 p.m. Friday, Simpson rested under the watch of the military honor guard, composed of representatives of different branches of the armed forces. Unmovable and unresponsive, a soldier stayed in a fixed position at Simpson’s head, rotating out every 15 minutes. 

Simpson is the first person to lie in state in the Capitol since 2012, when former Wyoming Secretary of State Joseph Meyer occupied the rotunda for a day that October. Before Meyer was Gov. Stanley Hathaway, in 2005. 

The state offered the honor to Sen. Mike Enzi’s family when he died following a bicycle accident in July 2021, but the family declined, Gov. Mark Gordon’s spokesperson Michael Pearlman told WyoFile.

Known for spunky good humor, affability and approachability, Simpson might have been taken aback by the stiff formality around his coffin. He would have been cheered, however, by his children and grandchildren, who drew the gathered mourners into a moment of familial intimacy when they gathered around the coffin during the ceremony and sang a few bars of the children’s song “The More We Get Together.”

The family sang the song at meals and gatherings, son Colin Simpson told reporters after the ceremony, and at his father’s bedside in his last days. 

He would have been glad, too, to see the slow trickle of visitors who paid their respects throughout the day.

Those visits included one from 85-year-old Foy Jolley, a military veteran and former police officer who guarded the statehouse when Simpson served in it and later remembered meeting his grandchildren as babies. 

“I gave him a salute,” Jolley said. “I put my hand on the casket and I said, ‘I’ll see you soon, Al.’” 

Then there was Gayle and Brett Baugh, who spent a quiet moment with the casket as the room cleared of politicians and state officials, both current and past. 

Approached by a few lingering reporters, Gayle Baugh, an elderly woman dressed in a distinguished purple coat, bent her head and held her husband’s hand as she took a long moment to compose her reason for paying homage to Simpson, who she had not known personally. 

“These days, positive public servants with the best interests of all in mind are rare,” she said finally, “and this man epitomized that.” 

She and her husband were also veterans, she said. “As we served in our careers, those were the people we tried to emulate.”

Outside the Capitol, the Wyoming flag hung at half mast, waiting for the Wyoming wind, respectfully subdued for the morning’s procession, to rise back up and wave it. The flag returns to full mast on Monday, after Simpson’s burial. 

After the ceremony, the senator was left with the honor guard and a few state employees serving as guides to the public.  

There was no great crush of people to pay homage to the politician during the time a WyoFile reporter spent in the rotunda.But Simpson was rarely without a visitor for long.  

There was a Cheyenne resident who declined to give her name but said she came to remember a man who impressed her in 1994, when she chaperoned a group of Bighorn Basin middle school students to the nation’s capital. Wyoming’s representative didn’t have time for the schoolchildren, she recalled, though they waited at her office for nearly an hour. 

The senator did. 

He met with them on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. He warmed up the intimidated young Wyomingites by telling them his shoe size — a whopping size 14, she remembered.  He “made the kids feel at ease.” They all took a photograph together, she said.

At around 10:45 a.m., Wyoming columnist, political maverick and prodigious speaker outer Rod Miller slipped out of a stairwell to stand for a moment by the coffin with his cowboy hat in his hands. 

“I miss Al,” Miller told a reporter. “He was a funny son of a bitch.” 

Miller wrote a column for this publication honoring Simpson’s legacy. In it, he wrote that there will doubtlessly soon be a drive for statues and plaques and naming places after the political giant. 

But, Miller wrote, “if we could seek Al Simpson’s wise counsel one last time, he might tell us to forget all that fancy stuff. I think he’d tell us, very lovingly, to just be careful whom we choose to stand in the gap he left. He’d tell us to choose a good neighbor.”

Slowly, quietly, Simpson’s visitors came through. Staff from the governor’s and legislative service office took a moment to pause by the casket and read the citation accompanying the Presidential Medal of Freedom that lay on a table behind Simpson’s honor guard. President Joe Biden awarded Simpson for being “never afraid to stand up for what he felt was right” and searching for common ground even as the nation’s body politic slid into online acrimony and harsh partisanship. 

Snippets of conversation drifted out of an office room and across the rotunda. 

“He was a good guy…” 

“He always worked across the aisle…”

“He was just that kind of guy…” 

Ann and Amy Legg — a mother and daughter duo originally from Worland — got a visit from Simpson’s daughter Sue as they paid their respects. Did you know my father, she asked. Everybody in Wyoming kind of knew Simpson, Ann Legg answered. She recalled him attending a high school graduation on a “hot, horrible day” in Worland.

“He needed a hat, and my husband loaned him one,” she said. 

Later, a grandfather gathered his wife and two grandchildren for a photograph in front of the coffin, gently waving his young grandson out of a two-thumbs up pose and into something more befitting the occasion. 

James and Vicki Medina had brought their grandchildren up from Colorado Springs, where they now live, to visit with Simpson. Medina worked for Simpson, heading his field office in Rock Springs. He showed a reporter a picture on his phone of the senator with Medina’s two sons. They were just little boys at the time, as Medina’s grandchildren are today, and Simpson sat with one on each knee.

A decade ago, they received a letter from Simpson. He had seen their sons, all grown up, in the crowd at a UW basketball game, and the retired senator wrote to tell them about it. 

In the missive, Simpson was “just kicking himself for not going down and giving them a big hug,” Vicki Medina said. 

The Simpson family is hosting a celebration of life for the senator at the University of Wyoming’s Arena Auditorium at 11 a.m. Saturday. The event is open to the public.

The post In Sen. Al Simpson’s final visit to the Wyoming Capitol, mourners find their own ways to say goodbye appeared first on WyoFile .

It’s been three weeks since Stephanie Bearstail died under suspicious circumstances on the Wind River Indian Reservation, and the 18-year-old’s family is mourning her as they wait for answers from federal investigators.

Bearstail was a passionate softball player and determined student eager to graduate high school and enter college — she had recently expressed interest in becoming a radiologist, her parents Nikki and Kevin Ferris told WyoFile in a phone interview this week. As a senior, she was already taking courses at Central Wyoming College. 

Their only daughter was also a certified goofball, a little boss of the house and her three brothers, and a bright light in the lives of the family and many others on the reservation. 

“Even we were surprised how many people knew her,” Nikki Ferris said. “We knew of her friends, but we didn’t know how many she had.” 

On March 15, those friends and others — as many as 200 people, according to news reports — walked to a fence line along the side of Wyoming 137, a road that cuts across the reservation, running from near the Wind River Casino outside Riverton west to Fort Washakie. That’s the area where authorities say Bearstail somehow exited a moving vehicle on a windy March night. 

At the demonstration, Bearstail’s supporters wore red — the color that has become a symbol for the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women that plagues communities on and off the reservation. They carried signs that read “Justice for Steph,” some of which still hung weeks later on the barbed wire fence that threads between the sage brush. 

Bearstail’s death, her mother said, “just blindsided all of us.” 

The Ferrises declined to share details, saying they do not want to publicly reveal information that could complicate the job of investigators. But they have reason to believe their daughter was a victim of violence, they said. 

“The main thing that I think of every day is I just wish somebody would come out and tell the truth about what happened,” Nikki said. “I don’t understand how anyone could know what happened and not say anything.” 

Bearstail grew up and lived her entire life in Fort Washakie, where her father was involved in law enforcement and today is a judge on the Wind River Tribal Court. 

The night of March 4, Bearstail did not return home by her 10:30 p.m. curfew. The parents could remember only one other time their lively but studious daughter had been late for her curfew, they told WyoFile. They grew worried, and within an hour, left home to look for her. 

The parents tracked their daughter’s phone location, which placed her in the area between Riverton and the small reservation community of Arapahoe. “She did need help, and we were trying to find her,” her mother said. 

On the drive, they received word she had been hospitalized, and so they headed to SageWest Hospital in Riverton. They were able to spend time with Bearstail before she died, but their daughter was unable to speak or share what happened to her, they said.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol, which maintains a list of highway fatalities from around the state, published an entry to the list about a week after Bearstail’s death, according to news reports. The entry states: “An unknown SUV was traveling westbound on Rendezvous Road. The SUV passenger allegedly jumped out of the vehicle while it was in motion for unknown reasons.” 

The entry does not say where investigators learned of the allegation that Bearstail jumped from the SUV. Authorities haven’t identified the driver. The Wyoming Highway Patrol directed WyoFile to the FBI for comment on the case. The FBI has said only that the case remains under investigation. The Fremont County Coroner’s office is conducting the autopsy, which hasn’t been finalized, a representative of that office said this week. 

Using the limited information from the highway patrol fatality database, news organizations ran headlines stating that Bearstail “allegedly jumped” from the car to her death. Those reports disturbed the family, the Ferrises said, because taken in isolation, the information suggests Bearstail was responsible for her own death. 

The headlines, Nikki said, served “to deflect off what happened to her.” But Bearstail’s community appears dedicated to keeping focus on her case and on the issue of domestic violence, which they believe led to her death. Other community events are in the works, the Ferrises told WyoFile. 

Native American women fall prey to violence, murders and unexplained deaths at disproportionally higher rates compared to other demographics in the United States. 

Many of the cases go unsolved, and reformers have pointed to the complicated jurisdictional nature of reservations — where local, state, federal and tribal law enforcement sometimes overlap in areas that are often economically depressed and, in the West, geographically isolated — as leading to a lack of accountability for perpetrators of violence.

That does not appear to be the case here, as the FBI swiftly took control of the investigation. “In this case, the FBI, they were [at the crime scene] that morning,” Nikki said. “They got involved quickly.”

Bearstail was the second oldest of the couple’s children. Her younger brothers, ages 15 and 13, have tried to return to school, but on some days have had to go home or haven’t been up for going at all, their mother said. 

“They’re not doing OK,” Nikki said. “It’s really hard.”

Since her daughter’s death, Nikki has made a steady stream of posts to social media, calling for justice, expressing her raw grief and remembering her daughter. There are videos of Bearstail running track, and of her dancing — full of life. 

As the Ferrises have received messages sharing swirling rumors about the night Bearstail died, they’ve implored people to take what they know to the FBI. But to date, all the family has been told by officials is that an investigation is active, the parents said. 

The FBI “said it would take time,” Nikki said in the March 25 interview. To her knowledge, “they’re still out there investigating,” she said. 

In a statement to WyoFile sent Wednesday evening, an FBI spokesperson for the Denver Field Office said the agency “appreciate[s] public interest in this incident and encourage[s] anyone with information to contact the Bureau of Indian Affairs/Wind River Police or the FBI.”

The agency could not offer a time frame for when it would conclude the investigation, the statement read. “We methodically and thoroughly address every element of the incident,” spokesperson Vikki Migoya said. 

Correction: This story was updated to correct a misspelling of Nikki Ferris’ name. —Ed.

The post ‘Come out and tell the truth’: Parents of teen who died outside Riverton wait for answers appeared first on WyoFile .

Wyoming’s lone congressional Rep. Harriet Hageman will no longer appear at town halls set for later this week in Cheyenne and Torrington, opting instead for virtual events, she announced Tuesday.

Her office blamed the change on “public events, credible threats to Hageman, and the related national outbursts of politically motivated violence and attempts at intimidation,” according to a statement posted to the congresswoman’s website. 

In response, Wyoming Democrats said Hageman and other conservatives were seeking to distract from widespread frustration with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s dismantling of some federal agencies. 

“I don’t think she expected the pushback that she received,” Democratic Party Chairman Joe Barbuto said. “In every community of every size that she visited, there were people of all political stripes there to say ‘hey, we’re really concerned.’”

Hageman had scheduled events in Cheyenne on Friday and Torrington on Saturday. Her decision to move them to a virtual format comes six days after a raucous crowd of more than 500 jeered the congresswoman during a tense town hall in Laramie. Though people in the crowd booed and cursed Hageman, no one was asked to leave or escorted out amid a heavy law enforcement presence, a Laramie police officer told WyoFile that night. No arrests were reported.

At one point during the back-and-forth, Hageman told her constituents that “it’s so bizarre to me how obsessed you are with the federal government. You guys are going to have a heart attack if you don’t calm down,” she said. “I’m sorry, you’re hysterical.”

Hageman cites other incidents 

More than 20 law enforcement officers were assigned to a town hall the following night in Wheatland, the statement from Hageman’s office said. “Despite the law enforcement presence, an attendee followed Hageman leaving the venue and initiated a physical confrontation with staff, into which local police were forced to intervene,” the statement reads. 

WyoFile has reached out to the Wheatland Police Department and is awaiting more information on the events described by Hageman. 

“I thank our wonderful law enforcement community for their willingness to support the public and myself while participating in our government process,” Hageman said in a statement. “It has become apparent, however, that the continuation of in-person town halls will be a drain on our local resources due to safety concerns for attendees.”

The congresswoman further alleged that her office received a number of credible threatening calls and emails, which are now the subject of a law enforcement investigation.

The Wyoming Democratic Party “certainly does not condone any kinds of violence or threats or harassment of any kind,” Barbuto said. Both elected officials and their staff in both political parties should be able to operate free from fears for their physical safety, he said.

“But at the same time, we have a fundamental right to protest,” he said. “The idea that protest is the same as chaos and using that to justify cancelling these public events is a disservice.” 

Hageman said she’s held 75 in-person town halls since running for Congress, with events in all 23 of Wyoming’s counties. All but the most recent two were held without incident, she said. 

The move to a virtual format for future events will continue “at least in the short-term,” her office said.

“It’s no secret that I am willing to engage with citizens on any topic, in any place. But I draw the line when organized protestors intentionally create confrontation and chaos, escalating tensions to a point where violence seems inevitable,” Hageman said in a statement.

Lawmakers often host town hall events in their communities during congressional downtime. In a conservative state like Wyoming, those gatherings often draw many supporters of the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation. 

But amid Trump and Musk’s dramatic cuts to federal programs and mass layoffs of government workers, upset constituents have been appearing in growing numbers at town halls across the country to demand answers from lawmakers. Republican leaders in Congress urged members to stop hosting town halls to avoid confrontations with angry constituents going viral. 

History of protests

After the Laramie event, some conservative politicians and pundits, citing the raucous nature of the event in a conservative state, suggested that the protesters weren’t legitimate constituents. But Laramie, one of the few blue-leaning communities in deeply red Wyoming, has a history of civil disobedience for left-leaning causes. During the summer and fall of 2020, for instance, hundreds of people marched through downtown to protest police brutality and the police shooting of local resident Robbie Ramirez.

One of the city’s House representatives, Karlee Provenza, described those making assertions about protesters flocking into town from other places as ignorant to Laramie’s civic nature. 

“Welcome to House District 45,” she said, “where we think a little different than the people who are sent to Washington D.C. on our behalf.”

In Laramie, Provenza continued, “people have continued to show up for things that matter to them. And they are fed up and they’re your constituents. And instead of acknowledging their concerns you [Hageman] were dismissive, so of course they were upset.”

To Provenza, the overarching message of Hageman’s tour through Wyoming, and the pushback she has seen in various towns and cities, is not that the state’s few Democrats are somehow unruly or dangerous. It is instead that certain actions of the Trump administration, and Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting initiative in particular, are upsetting people, she said.

“Quite frankly, I think it’s lazy to say that their anger and suffering is not valid and has no place here,” she said of Hageman’s characterization of the reaction seen on her tour. “That’s what someone says who doesn’t have to work for their vote.” 

The post Hageman cancels in-person town halls, opts for virtual events citing safety concerns appeared first on WyoFile .