Globally recognized environmental advocate Winona LaDuke steps down from her organization

Indigenous environmental advocate Winona LaDuke has resigned as executive director of Honor the Earth, the Minnesota-based nonprofit she helped found 30 years ago with members of the Indigo Girls band.

The move comes a week after her organization lost a sexual harassment case, with a Becker County jury awarding a former Honor the Earth employee $750,000 for lost wages and emotional distress. The decision and penalty accelerated LaDuke's decision to step down, Honor the Earth said in a statement Wednesday, describing the damages as "scalding."

Honor the Earth board chair Paul DeMain said the organization is extremely grateful for LaDuke's service and will move forward with "great heaviness and optimism."

LaDuke, a fiery Anishinaabe leader globally recognized for her work on environmental justice and the rights of Indigenous peoples, submitted her letter of resignation Monday, the organization said. LaDuke ran for U.S. vice president twice on the Green Party ticket. Among her many campaigns, LaDuke recently led the passionate opposition to construction of the Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline across northern Minnesota.

"30 years is a good run," LaDuke said in a text from her industrial hemp farm in Osage, Minn. "I am ready for change."

LaDuke, 63, said she planned to take some time off, and was busy with preparations for spring planting and the maple sugarbush. She's a citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe.

Krystal Two Bulls, the group's current executive co-director, will take the leadership spot. In a statement on Honor the Earth's website, Two Bulls said the organization is undergoing fundamental change, and that she hopes it will serve as an example to other groups about the work that needs to be done addressing sexual harassment.

Honor the Earth, she said, will be committed to "frontline efforts of dismantling the fossil fuel industry and to creating the alternatives and solutions for a just and sustainable future."

LaDuke's resignation letter was not made public. In the group's news release, LaDuke apologized, and said she takes personal responsibility for not appropriately handling former employee Margaret "Molly" Campbell's complaints of being sexual harassed by a co-worker. LaDuke also described the court system as "a punitive, white, carceral system that targets Native Peoples."

"In such a forum, it was unsurprising that the result would be a staggering and disproportionate fine against Honor the Earth," she said.

On her personal Facebook page, LaDuke posted a lengthy note of regret, saying she "failed" Campbell. At the time her organization was consumed with fighting the Enbridge Sandpiper oil pipeline, she said, adding that was not an excuse, but context.

"The panic of an immediate attack on our community made it difficult to focus on internal issues while a war was raging outside," she posted.

As news of LaDuke's resignation spread Wednesday, reaction among Minnesota's close-knit network of environmental groups was muted. Steve Morse, executive director of Minnesota Environmental Partnership, said people are surprised. He called LaDuke a powerful environmental advocate for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike.

"That's a hard blow on a small nonprofit," Morse said. "It's a very unfortunate situation all the way around."

Campbell did office work for Honor the Earth. She complained in 2014-15 that a co-worker sexually harassed her and had been accused of sexually assaulting Native boys. LaDuke repeatedly brushed off Campbell's concerns, according to the 2019 lawsuit Campbell filed.

Campbell resigned in 2015 after being put on unpaid leave, according to the complaint, and filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in 2016. The agency investigated and found no wrongdoing. Campbell unsuccessfully appealed the decision, then filed the lawsuit in court.

Campbell's lawyer, Christy Hall, who works for St. Paul-based Gender Justice, said the damages awarded in the case were reasonable. Only a small part were punitive, she said, and addressed the wrongfulness of the conduct. Most of the amount related to the harm Campbell experienced as she struggled to find a job in her chosen profession.

"She hasn't worked in the environmental movement since," Hall said. Campbell now works as a doula and massage therapist.