Here is the latest on the Fighting Sioux nickname. Let's just hope the State Board of Higher Education does not pull the rug out from under the nickname supporters down on Standing Rock that have worked hard to get the 1000 signatures on the petition.
A state Supreme Court hearing that’s been holding up a decision to end the use of UND’s Fighting Sioux nickname is scheduled for today.
The court will decide whether the district court in Devils Lake decided correctly when it ruled against nickname supporters from the Spirit Lake Dakotah Nation. The plaintiffs had filed suit to block what they consider an illegal early retirement of the nickname by the State Board of Higher Education.
The board had indicated it favored early retirement last fall, but the lawsuit and the temporary restraining order it triggered forced the board to pause. After the judge ruled in favor of the board, the board still took no action because the plaintiffs had appealed to the Supreme Court.
Thrown into this mix is the potential for the nickname to go on the ballot at the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Nickname supporters there turned in a petition with 1,004 signatures, a significant number considering about 1,900 voted in the last tribal election.
The main reason board members favored retiring the nickname was they weren’t seeing any movement toward such a ballot measure at Standing Rock.
UND needs the blessings of both the state’s Sioux tribes to keep the nickname, as stipulated in the settlement between the state and the NCAA, which considers American Indian nicknames offensive
[Grand Forks Herald]
It seems to me that by the time the Supreme Court rules on the case the election will be scheduled tying the state board of lower education's hands.
ReplyDeleteI have to express my admiration to the members of the Standing Rock and Spirit Lake tribes that stood up for this. I always felt that the support was there, but not enough tribal members felt strongly enough to force a vote.
I was wrong to underestimate them.
What's amazing is just how close the level of support is on the reservations as it is in the GF and UND communities.
Those who hope for a Supreme Court decision to force a delay don't understand the law. Moreover, the Board will be forced to get rid of the race-based nickname eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later. Those supporters of using another race of people for an athletic good luck charm are apparently unaware that the psychological research has documented that UND's race-based athletic policy violates UND's own non-discrimation policy.
ReplyDeletegunderso
ReplyDeleteCan you please back up your claim regarding the alleged policy violation or point to a link that does so? Thank you.
Yeah! I am going to go along with Charlie here and ask you to give us that link.
ReplyDeleteProjecting your racism on people that agree with the Tribal members.
ReplyDeleteNot surprising.
Okay, I'll give you several links but you need to look beyond internet-available documents to fully research this. It will require some work on your part.
ReplyDeleteStart at indianmascots.com and look under "Advocacy Tools" for the two abstracts regarding the research of Dr. Stephanie Fryberg. (You might also learn from my paper posted there on how it's unsportsmanlike conduct for a predominately-White school like UND to pretend they are members of another race.)
Then read the APA resolution and references at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/ResAmIndianMascots.pdf .
The references for Fryberg are the key things to read.
Then read the APA Justification Statement. It's worthwhile along with the listed references at http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/mascots-justif.pdf.
If you read this research, you’ll find that these race-based athletic identities "boost" the self-esteem of European Americans but lowers the self-esteem of American Indians. Hence UND (a state government entity) has a government policy based on race that targets a specific racial minority, and the research evidence shows that this race-based government policy benefits members of the majority race while harming members of the targeted minority race, which is the very definition of "harmful discrimination based on race" produced by a government policy, namely UND's athletic nickname policy. This violates the State of North Dakota’s non-discrimination policies that explicitly outlaw any government policy that involves harmful discrimination based on race.
By the way, the research finding that these race-based athletic identities "boost" the self-esteem of European Americans helps to explain how so many non-Native residents of North Dakota have difficulty understanding how American Indians could have a very different experience. Respectfully, this perhaps helps explain some of the posts above.
Additionally, Fryberg’s research has determined that American Indians who say they support race-based nicknames are actually the “greatest victims” of such policies. This is verified by the fact that American Indians who support race-based nicknames suffer a greater decrease in self-esteem that that suffered by American Indians who oppose race-based nicknames.
Just a couple of other comments. The significance of my last paragraph is great, that "Fryberg’s research has determined that...American Indians who support race-based nicknames suffer a greater decrease in self-esteem that that suffered by American Indians who oppose race-based nicknames." This means that the harm is below the conscious level, so statements from American Indian individuals of support for a race-based nickname do not provide justification for White Higher Ed Board members to retain the race-based nickname.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when the NCAA in 2002 surveyed the over 500 federally recognized tribes, 99% of responding tribes asked the NCAA to eliminate these race-based athletic identities. That's 99% versus 1%!
Many supporters of race-based nicknames are fond of saying “What about the Florida State Seminoles?” because they got “approval” from the smallest Seminole tribe. That tribe is one of 564 federally recognized tribes in the United States. That’s 1 of 564. If you asked 564 African Americans if they approved of your using the N-word, and 1 out of 564 said that they “approved”, or if you got 1% or even 10% that said it was okay with them, would you keep using the N-word because of the “approval” from one (or 5 or even 56 of 564) African American?
Moreover, the much larger Seminoles Nation of Oklahoma have taken an official position opposing race-based athletic identities [see the July 14, 2001 resolution by the Five Civilized Tribes Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations], which said that "the Five Civilized Tribes joins the United States Commission on Civil Rights call to eliminate the stereotypical use of American Indian names and images as mascots in sports and other events". It's time for schools to enter the Twenty-first Century and get rid of your archaic race-based nickname that sicken so many American Indians when the non-Natives students and fans "play Indian".
Moreover, over 100 American Indian, educational, psychological, civil rights and religious organizations have resolutions opposing race-based athletic nicknames.
Hey, Whistler, when you wrote that "the Indian people themselves they support it all the way", it's important that we all understand that those American Indians who say they support race-based nicknames are actually the "greatest victims" because they are the very people who on average suffer the greatest psychological harm from race-based athletic identities like that of UND.
ReplyDeleteAs I posted before:"Additionally, Fryberg’s research has determined that American Indians who say they support race-based nicknames are actually the “greatest victims” of such policies. This is verified by the fact that American Indians who support race-based nicknames suffer a greater decrease in self-esteem that that suffered by American Indians who oppose race-based nicknames."
Hence, because the harm is subconscious, the victims are unaware they have been victimized by the school.
Support from American Indians is useless to use as justification of retaining a race-based nickname, especially an educational institution that claims to value research-based evidence.