North Dakota Board of Higher Education Ignores Will of the People

Cross posted from Say Anything Blog.

There is not a single symbol that this community supports more than the Fighting Sioux Logo. Support for the logo in the Grand Forks/UND community is overwhelming. It seems that every third person you see is wearing some item of Fighting Sioux Clothing.

But the politically correct have always said it was offensive to the Indian Tribal members that live here and are our neighbors. That lie was exposed last year when the Spirit Lake tribe voted 2-1 in support of UND continuing to honor the Sioux Tribe.

Support for the Sioux name on the Standing Rock Tribe also appears strong. Over 1000 members signed a petition this year to keep the name. That's more than half of the number of people that voted in the last election the tribe had. However members of the Standing Rock ruling body are refusing to hold an election despite the strong support for the Sioux name on the Tribe.

I have no doubt that if the Board had give Sioux Logo supporters on the Standing Rock Reservation time they would have gotten their vote. Clearly their hurry up and change the name action yesterday was a way of keeping the Standing Rock Tribal members from having their say.

All along there's been a small number of elitists that have wanted to change the name. Of course these people are gutless. They've been trying to promote racial decisiveness in order to advance their agenda. That's resulted in a certain element saying that if the name goes then so should all of the programs at the school that are there to encourage education of Native Americans.

Yesterday, hours after the ND Supreme Court ruled that the Board of Higher Education could change UND's nickname they hurried up and did so.

The Board of Higher Education's hurry up action is meant to give the blame to the Standing Rock Tribe for us throwing away 80 years of tradition. Let's not let them duck the blame. It's not the fault of the Indians that are our neighbors. It's the fault of a few pointy head elites that we're going to have to explain this to our kids that have grown up adoring the name.

Some will say that this is a business decision because UND can't play in the Summit league until this is resolved. That's BS. For one thing the issue had to be resolved by the end of the year due to the settlement with the NCAA. (More on that in later posts.) For another the Summit league isn't going to increase revenues. Games with Indiana-Perdue just isn't going to pull the fans in.

Instead this decision is going to cost the school millions of dollars in Alumni dollars. (In fact rumors have it that prior dithering over the name has already costs the school hundreds of millions of dollars.) For myself, I'll continue to support the hockey program as I have in the past. But the academic side of the school won't get a penny of mine, ever. I'm sure I'm not the only alumni entering their peak earning years that feel the same way.

If the tribes didn't support the use of the name I could see letting it go. But that's never been the case. The tribes encouraged UND to adopt the names and at least the membership has always been supportive of the name. The public by a 2 or 3 to 1 majority want to keep the name. What ever happened to the majority rule? Does it go out the window because a few elitist pinheads think they're better than all of us.

The Board of Higher Education needs to hear our displeasure with them. Write them a letter. Don't swear don't make threats. Just tell them you're unhappy with them. Board members are appointed by the Governor. He needs to hear from you as well.

The North Dakota State Board of Higher Education are inept. They screwed up their oversight responsibilities at NDSU and now they've screwed over the UND community. Shame on them.