All right, I'll give it a try . . .

There really is something very different between "Fighting Irish" and 
"Fighting Sioux".  The University of Notre Dame, while founded by French 
Jesuits, has had an Irish Catholic president since about 1860, well 
before they adopted the name.  That is an entirely different context for 
the adoption of the name than is a situation in which you have conquered 
people, stolen their lands, and then appropriated their names, symbols, 
and images for your own use.  If you don't understand why the 
distinction between "us" and "them" is important, I can't explain it to 
you but I think that not getting it betrays a woeful lack of empathy.  
It's that distinction that makes the issue of using Native American 
mascots important.  They really should only be used with the permission 
of the peoples themselves.

Now, on to North Dakota and why this particular case turned into such a 
mess.  When the NCAA finally woke up to the fact that this was a serious 
issue that needed to be addressed, various member institutions reacted 
in different ways.  At one end of the spectrum you had Florida State; 
FSU had always recognized the importance of the issue and not only had 
gotten permission from the Seminole tribe to use the name, they paid the 
tribe a licensing fee all along.  So they had no problem keeping the 
name.  Then you had schools that either changed their name without 
making it much of an issue or tried to find a path through which they 
secured permission from the tribe whose name they were using.  With this 
in mind, the NCAA set forth a rule that said that if a school could get 
a tribe to pass a referendum okaying the use of a tribal name, it was 
okay to use it.

Then there was North Dakota, which threw a temper tantrum about the very 
idea that this was an important issue.  They fought the NCAA at every 
step of the way and turned it into the biggest possible pain in the 
ass.  They finally, after immense foot dragging, submitted to the new 
NCAA rule.  There were three bands of Sioux whose permission they 
needed.  Two of them passed the resolution.  The third said that their 
band had no legal procedure for taking a referendum and that they had no 
intention of creating a special procedure just for this matter.  So UND 
was unable to secure the required permissions to keep the name "Sioux".

It's my belief that had UND acted in a cooperative manner instead of 
causing as much trouble for the NCAA as they could then the NCAA would 
have been willing to find a workaround given the odd circumstances.  
However, since UND had been uncooperative to the point of filing 
lawsuits and stirring up the North Dakota legislature (which, I think, 
they eventually wished they hadn't), the NCAA dropped the hammer on them 
and refused to consider any alternatives.  UND has no one to blame but 
itself for the way this played out and the fact that the NCAA was 
unwilling to compromise at all.  Then you had the legislature deciding 
to pass a law forbidding the university from changing its name, which 
only made UND's situation worse.

So now they are without a nickname until 2015 because the legislators 
they agitated told them they can't.

On 6/4/2013 8:59 AM, Tom wrote:
> Are they really planning on calling themselves the Coyotes?  Why not 
> the fighting Coyotes?  Could they get away with calling themselves the 
> Sioux?
>
> The one thing in this whole, long process I never understood was why 
> "Fighting Sioux" was an abusive nickname.  You have all kinds of 
> nicknames for sports teams (including the "Fighting Irish") and some 
> of them use abusive logos (Chief Wahoo of Cleveland) but this one got 
> all the press.  I guess I'm just dense because I still don't get it.
>
> Tom Rowe
>
> Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
>
> On 6/4/2013 7:23 AM, John Edwards wrote:
>> The last line was the best one:
>> "UND now uses the nickname Coyotes."
>>
>> I don't know who would be more surprised by this bit of news: UND 
>> (who is banned from having a nickname until 2015) or USD (who 
>> actually *are* the Coyotes).
>>
>> John
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On 2013-06-04, at 7:36 AM, Joe Makowiec <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>>> Two groups of Native Americans do not have standing to keep the 
>>>> University of North Dakota from retiring its use of the 
>>>> controversial "Fighting Sioux" nickname, the 8th Circuit ruled.
>>> Full story:
>>>
>>> http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/05/31/58118.htm
>>>
>>> Joe
>>> -- 
>>> Joe Makowiec can be reached at:
>>> http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
>>> http://makowiec.org/
>