Four of five North Dakota Supreme Court justices in Sioux nickname case are UND Law School grads

My first reaction to this story was you have got to be kidding me? Also, I think Leigh Jeanotte is trying to muck up the process by forcing the court hand to make the decision in his favor or the ND Supreme Court doesn't have any credibility. This is right out of the rules for radicals play book; begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is exactly what Jeanotte is doing, he is trying to invent a controversy before the appeal even begins. This is shameful. Let the issue play out in the courts without influence from the outside. The group that brought the lawsuit against the State Board of Higher Education are actually members of the Spirit Lake Tribe.

Leigh Jeanotte “would hope” that North Dakota’s Supreme Court won’t be biased in any way about the Fighting Sioux nickname because four of its five members are University of North Dakota law school graduates.

“But you always wonder about that affiliation with UND and the athletics,” said Jeanotte, director of American Indian Student Services at UND and an outspoken nickname opponent. “It just could taint something, I think, in a horrible way.”

Legitimate or not, such concern exists among some nickname opponents hungry for an end to the issue, he said.

Despite his reservations, “My feeling is that they’re going to be fair with this and any other item that they have to deal with,” Jeanotte said.

The Supreme Court has received a notice of appeal from the attorney representing a group of Spirit Lake Sioux trying to stop the state Board of Higher Education from retiring the nickname before a November deadline set in a settlement with the NCAA.

The board voted 5-3 on Thursday to keep the nickname until the appeal is heard, and directed its attorney to request an expedited hearing before the state’s highest court.

Chief Justice Gerald W. VandeWalle bristled Friday when asked whether it will be difficult for justices to set aside their UND connections when hearing arguments in a case that goes to the heart of the university’s identity.

“You start with the presumption, apparently, that all the judges are on one side or the other,” he said. “I don’t know that. I have no idea what their position is on the issue.”

“I’m not happy, very frankly, about the question because I think it raises issues about the credibility of the court,” he added.

Of the four justices who hold law degrees from the UND School of Law, two of them, VandeWalle and Justice Daniel Crothers, also earned undergraduate degrees at UND. Justice Dale Sandstrom earned his bachelor’s degree at North Dakota State University, while Justice Mary Muehlen Maring earned hers at what is now Minnesota State University Moorhead. Justice Carol Ronning Kapsner holds a bachelor’s degree from College of St. Catherine in St. Paul and a law degree from the University of Colorado School of Law.
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Cross posted at sayanythingblog.com