Proposed Kohler golf course presents moral choice with Native burial grounds | Letter
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Here is this week’s letter to the editor of the Sheboygan Press. See our letters policy below for details about how to share your views.
Golfing on graves
Respect for the dead is a fundamental principle of humanity. Across Wisconsin, small family cemeteries are carefully preserved. Yet, for Native burial grounds, the Kohler Company and city of Sheboygan are ready to bulldoze that principle — literally.
Kohler plans to build a luxury golf course on land home to Native burial mounds, eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. A federally mandated 2018 study discovered Native human remains in at least seven locations on the course plan. Now that the courts revoked their wetland permit, Kohler plans to redesign their course to avoid the wetlands — but what about the burial sites?
A new course plan demands a new archaeological study and conditional use permit. Yet, Sheboygan Mayor Ryan Sorenson and the Plan Commission extended Kohler’s permit without addressing burial sites, requiring a new study or reviewing the revised plan. Kohler is eager to break ground, apparently unbothered by what they might unearth.
Who wants a golf course built on their ancestors’ graves? Why is this even an option for Indigenous sites? If burial sites must be disturbed, it should be done with care by archaeologists — not bulldozers.
This “golfing on graves” project epitomizes the cultural erasure Indigenous communities have faced for generations. It’s a grotesque tale of corporate greed, enabled by city leaders willing to desecrate sacred sites for profit.
Sheboygan’s leaders face a moral choice: protect sacred burial grounds and honor humanity or prioritize profit over respect for the dead. We must hold them accountable for making the right decision.
Dr. Belle Rose Ragins
Town of Wilson
Our letters policy
Letters to the editor are published in the order in which they are received and letter-writers are limited to having one letter published per month. Letters can be emailed to news@sheboyganpress.com and Editor Brandon Reid at breid@gannett.com. Letters must meet specific guidelines, including being no more than 250 words and be from local authors or on topics of local interest. All submissions must include the name of the person who wrote the letter, their city of residence and a contact phone number. Letters are edited as needed for style, grammar, length, fairness, accuracy and libel.
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