Last semester, Brenda Councillor was a student senator at Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas, and a vocal critic of university president Linda Sue Warner.

This semester she’s an alumna.

And she’s still not quite sure how it happened.

Councillor had one required course left to take as the fall semester ended. She was enrolled for the spring, and settled into her dorm room. But over the holidays, the registrar called her to congratulate her on her graduation.

The university was waiving her final required course and refunding her spring tuition and fees. They were also locking her out of her dorm room, shutting down her student email account, and mailing her a (misspelled) diploma.

When Councillor, who had circulated a petition in the fall demanding President Warner’s removal, wrote to the university’s vice president for academic affairs to ask why she had been involuntarily graduated, he blew her off.

“My priority is working with current Haskell Indian Nations University students,” he wrote. “Your concerns as a recent graduate of Haskell Indian Nations University in American Indian Studies will not be considered at this time.”

Ouch.

11:40 am Update: Linda Sue Warner, the president of Haskell Indian Nations University, has been summoned to Washington DC for a meeting with her university’s regents and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.