NCAA to evaluate use of American Indian mascots
By Daily Bruin Staff
Aug. 19, 2001 9:00 p.m.
SEVEN DISPUTED NAMES There are only seven
remaining division one teams who continue using team names based on
American Indian imagery. Â Â Â Original graphic by
VICTOR CHEN/Daily Bruin Web adaptation by MIKE OUYANG/Daily Bruin
Senior Staff
By Jeff Agase Daily Bruin Reporter
The NCAA announced on July 30 that its Minority Opportunity and
Interests Committee placed the issue of American Indian mascots,
nicknames and imagery at the top of its agenda.
The announcement comes after growing discontent by American
Indian organizations over what some call blatant racism. The NCAA
also will examine whether or not such mascots and nicknames
contradict the organization’s principles of nondiscrimination
and ethical conduct.
While the issue has loomed for some time for both the NCAA and
teams with American Indian nicknames or mascots, an April 13
statement by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights once again brought
the issue to the foreground.
“Schools should not use their influence to perpetuate
misrepresentations of any culture or people,” read the
statement, which does not carry the weight of law.
“Stereotypes of American Indians teach all students that
stereotyping of minority groups is acceptable, a dangerous lesson
in a diverse society.”
Battles have been waged throughout the country on campuses from
Florida to California between anti-discrimination activists and
those who view the racism accusations as hypersensitive.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the site of a
particularly contentious controversy. Students and faculty at the
university allegedly notified potential athletic recruits that the
school’s unofficial mascot, Chief Illiniwek was a racist
symbol. This tactic was negatively influencing recruits. In
response, Chancellor Michael Aiken required faculty and students to
get clearance from the athletic department before speaking with
potential recruits.
Chief Illiniwek, who is not technically the school’s
mascot, makes routine appearances at the halftimes of football and
basketball games to perform a native dance while clad in full
headdress.
Those who defend mascots like Chief Illiniwek or Florida
State’s Osceola, who charges the football field on horseback
and plants a flaming spear into the turf, point to the
schools’ consultation with local American Indian groups to
establish as accurate portrayals as possible. Such portrayals, and
the massive popular support for them, should be seen as a most
distinguished honor to American Indians, Web sites devoted to
saving Chief Illiniwek say.
But many within the American Indian community do not feel
honored by the mascots and logos, despite the good intentions of
some universities. Faculty members have been some of the most
outspoken critics of the depictions.
“The Illiniwek exhibition is tantamount to someone putting
on a parody of a Catholic Mass,” said Norma Linton, an
anthropology lecturer visiting the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, in the dialogue report.
Similar opinions have been voiced by faculty at other
universities, including Florida State (Seminoles), the University
of North Dakota (Fighting Sioux), and the University of
Tennessee-Chattanooga (Moccasins).
Although none of the Pac-10 conference teams currently use
American Indian nicknames or mascots, Stanford still had the
nickname “Indians” as recently as the early 1970s
before renaming themselves the Cardinal. At the time, school
officials faced strong opposition, but Ombudsperson Lois Amsterdam
supported removal of the name, reports “Coming Voice,”
the newsletter of the American Indian community at Stanford.
“All of us have in some way, by action or inaction,
accepted and supported the use of the Indian symbol on
campus,” she said in 1972. “We did not do so with
malice, or with intent to defile a racial group. Rather, it was a
reflection of our society’s retarded understanding, dulled
perception and clouded vision.”
Crystal Roberts, retention coordinator of the American Indian
Student Association at UCLA, believes the depictions, both at the
college and professional levels, are inaccurate and have profound
effects on American Indian children.
“When you see someone with a Washington Redskins hat or at
a national level at a baseball game making a “˜tomahawk
chop,’ that’s going to affect a person
psychologically,” she said. “Kids will ask, “˜Why
are they making fun of who I am?'”
The two largest public high school systems in the country, the
Los Angeles Unified School District and the New York State Board of
Education, both recently voted to force schools with American
Indian nicknames to retire them and adopt new nicknames and
mascots.
Despite the ascension of the issue to the top of the NCAA
committee’s agenda and the April 13 statement from the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, the NCAA is taking a methodical
approach.
“The NCAA is in the beginning stages of looking at this
issue,” said Jane Jankowski, assistant director of public
relations. “There has not been a study before on an NCAA-wide
basis.”
In the recent past, proponents of the nicknames have been
unwilling to acquiesce to pressure. San Diego State’s
“Monty Montezuma” mascot is being phased out, despite
overwhelming student and alumni support for his retention.
“It’s such a long, long, long tradition here,”
said Bill Johnson, director of licensing at SDSU, in a statement.
“The overwhelming majority of alums and students want this
culture to stay here. We’re trying to be politically correct
but not to excess. That logo and nickname sets us apart.”
