A little over a year ago, the NCAA instituted a ban on ''hostile or abusive" nicknames & mascots, aimed at schools that used Native American symbols & names. Any team that continues to use an offensive logo or mascot will be barred from NCAA postseason tournaments, and the school will be unable to host any tournaments as well. Among the schools listed as violating this policy was the University of North Dakota, whose team name is the "Fighting Sioux" & use the Native American logo pictured at the top.
UND had appealed the decision to the NCAA & asked them to reconsider, but the NCAA refused. So this week, North Dakota filed suit against the NCAA in federal court...
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said the lawsuit, filed in Northeast Central District Court in Grand Forks, alleges a breach of contract by the NCAA, a breach of good faith and illegal restraint of trade.
One of North Dakota's arguments is that if the ban is against
all racial stereotypes, names & symbols, then why is "Fighting Sioux" offensive & the
University of Notre Dame's "
Fighting Irish" OK? The little drunken brawling Irish Leprechaun plays on a few Irish stereotypes. According to the NCAA, the reason why Notre Dame is
OK...
The NCAA says it has never questioned Notre Dame's Fighting Irish nickname or leprechaun mascot because it hasn't received a formal complaint.
"We have not gotten information from any group that represents Irish or (anyone of) Irish ancestry ... that they believe that image is hostile and/or abusive," said Charlotte Westerhaus, NCAA vice president for diversity and inclusion. "On the other hand, we had a lot of input from Native American tribes across the country that they believe the imagery at Florida State and other schools is (offensive)."
Feeney raised the Irish question Wednesday. "There's no end to this," he said. "I happen to be an American of Irish descent. Should I be outraged at the notion that the Fighting Irish suggest a brawling, half-drunken Irishman? How about the Holy Cross Crusaders? Should every American Muslim be outraged at the thousands upon thousands of Muslims and atheists and non-Christians who perished during the Crusades? ... I really believe the NCAA is imposing the thought police on sports teams."
Six Division II and III schools use "Fighting Scots": Edinboro (Pa.), Ohio Valley (W.Va.), Wooster (Ohio), Monmouth (Ill.), Gordon (Mass.) and Maryville (Tenn.). Two use Scots: Macalester (Minn.) and Alma (Mich.).
Among the original teams listed as being in violation of the policy last year, three have successfully reversed the NCAA decision about their team name or mascot. The Florida State Seminoles, the University of Utah Utes and the Central Michigan University Chippewas were all able to get the NCAA to reconsider based on support from the corresponding tribe. Florida State has the support of both the Florida & Oklahoma Seminole tribes to use the name & mascot...
There was never any doubt where the Seminole Tribe of Florida stood on Florida State University's nickname. The tribe helped university boosters create the costume for the Chief Osceola mascot, approving the face paint, flaming spear and Appaloosa horse that have no connection to Seminole history....Support for Florida State is obvious at the Seminole Tribe's showcase Okalee Indian Village in Hollywood, Fla. The village is a small, modern, concrete zoo on the site of the tribe's Hard Rock Casino, adjacent to an Improv comedy club. Under chickees, grass huts that fan out around a cooking pit, women sew patchwork dresses while sitting on garnet-colored nylon F.S.U. football folding chairs.
In the University of North Dakota's case, it doesn't have unanimity from the Native American population in North Dakota. Some have supported the mascot & some oppose.
Some cite the NCAA's decision about the College of William & Mary's logo as political correctness run amok...
William & Mary's sports teams are known as "The Tribe". In May of this year, the NCAA ruled that the tribe nickname was OK, but the 2 feathers in the logo above is offensive & abusive...
In response to a ruling by the NCAA that called the imagery offensive to Native Americans, the school said Tuesday that it plans to phase out the use of two Indian feathers.
In a letter to the Williamsburg school's community, college president Gene R. Nichol lashed out about the NCAA's sanctions that ultimately forced the school to stop using the green and gold logo it has had since the late 1970s.
"I am compelled to say, at the outset, how powerfully ironic it is for the College of William & Mary to face sanction for athletic transgression at the hands of the NCAA," Nichol wrote. "The Association has applied its mascot standards in ways so patently inconsistent and arbitrary as to demean the entire undertaking."
My mother's alma mater, the
University of Mississippi (better known as Ole Miss), eliminated
Colonel Reb in 2003...
However, that hasn't kept the students from keeping the Colonel alive...
It has been three football seasons since Colonel Reb last set foot on the Ole Miss gridiron, banished because his old South image was seen as out of step with the changing South. But when the University of Georgia brings Uga VI to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium today, his Mississippi counterpart will be there in more than just memory.
With locks of pure white hair peeping from a large-brimmed hat and his blue seersucker suit, the mustachioed character will occupy his season-ticket seat at the front of the student section. He calls himself Colonel Too, but signs his autograph "Col. R."...A brawny male Ole Miss cheerleader showed his Rebel spirit, trading a quiet handshake with the banned mascot en route to the stadium. But his defiance only went so far: He wouldn't give his name because the squad has been instructed to have nothing to do with Too.
"He doesn't represent anything negative in my book," he said. When the student government held a vote after the Colonel's banishment, 94 percent of the students agreed with the cheerleader's stand, casting their ballots in favor of restoring the mascot.
But Chancellor Robert Khayat, in a 2003 letter to students in The Daily Mississippian, would not reconsider. He declared Colonel Reb antiquated, a "Disney-like elderly plantation person not representative of a modern athletics program."
Arguably, the 2 most racially offensive mascots & team names aren't even in college sports. Major League Baseball & the National Football League hold that distinction, with the
Cleveland Indians'
Chief Wahoo & the football team in the nation's capital, the
Washington Redskins...