Kohler’s Golfing on Graves Project
Respect for the dead is a universal value — or so we thought. Across Wisconsin, small family cemeteries are protected with care. Yet for Native burial grounds, the Kohler Company and Sheboygan city leaders are ready to bulldoze that principle – literally.
Kohler plans to build a luxury golf course in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on land eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and home to Native burial mounds. A federally mandated 2018 study discovered human remains in seven locations on the course plan. Since the courts revoked their wetland permit, Kohler is redesigning the course to avoid the wetlands — but what about the burial sites?
A new course plan demands a new archaeological study. Yet Sheboygan Mayor Sorenson and his Plan Commission, citing “economic benefits,” approved Kohler’s project without one. Why bother when profits beckon? Sacred sites, it seems, are expendable if the price is right. Meanwhile, Kohler—a political powerhouse and major employer—appears content to let backhoes, not archaeologists, unearth Native remains.
Would you tolerate your ancestors’ graves being paved for a golf course? For Indigenous communities, this cultural violence is routine—a grotesque reflection of America’s ongoing erasure of Native people.
This “golfing on graves” project is a disgrace for our state. Kohler, one of Wisconsin’s largest companies, should lead in integrity, not moral failure. Elected leaders have betrayed public trust by prioritizing profit and political pull over respect for the dead. They must be held accountable. Desecrating sacred burial sites is unforgivable. The dead deserve dignity—not bulldozers.
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