Sioux logo debate is in tribes' hands

The long and contentious debate over the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname and logo was temporarily put on ice Friday with a lawsuit settlement that gives the school three years to win approval from the state's two Sioux tribes or pick a new nickname.

The university has until November 2010 to get clear approval from both the Spirit Lake and Standing Rock tribes.

Approved Friday by North Dakota's Board of Higher Education, the deal ends the school's lawsuit against the NCAA, which was poised to punish the school by banning it from being host to playoff games and using the Sioux logo in post-season play.

Some American Indians say Friday's action isn't likely to end debate on the Grand Forks campus of 13,000 students, or elsewhere.

UND spokesman Peter Johnson said, "We think that given the nature of the agreement and where things stand today, this is a good approach." The NCAA, he stressed, said that although using Indian names and imagery in sports can create a "hostile or abusive environment," it did not make such findings about the UND campus.

NCAA spokesman Bob Williams said the association's position is still that "such imagery has no place in our collegiate athletics."

But the agreement is in the same spirit that has allowed Florida State to continue using the Seminoles name.

FSU is using the name and logo with approval from a local tribe.

"It confirms that, in this case, the Sioux people and no one else should decide whether and how their name should be used," Williams said.

Leader: burden shift unfair

Messages left at both tribal headquarters were not returned Friday. But Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Ron His Horse Is Thunder told the Grand Forks Herald the settlement unfairly shifts the burden of retiring the nickname to the tribes.

"To me, what that is going to cause, I think, is lots of disruption on the reservation because I think there's going to be an all-out effort to perhaps buy off the tribes, lobby the tribes and that sort of thing," said Leigh Jeanotte, director of American Indian Student Services at UND, who stressed that he was speaking for himself.

Indian activist Clyde Bellecourt of Minneapolis offered a similar assessment, adding that he plans to get groups to lobby against the logo.

"Well, you know, there's 500 other tribes in America that feel that it should go," said Bellecourt who with his brother Vernon protested the use of Indian nicknames and logos around the country.

"It offends everybody, not just those two tribes."

Vernon Bellecourt died earlier this month, and many memories of him centered on his fight against the use of Indian imagery.

Author Louise Erdrich, who lives in Minneapolis, turned down an honorary degree from UND earlier this year because of the nickname issue.

A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Erdrich said she has affection for UND. Family members have gone there and she's been a visiting writer at the school.

"I've known how painful it is for [Indians] to have dealt with the divisiveness that this logo has caused," Erdrich said. "UND is filled with enlightened, interesting people. It saddened me that the administration continued to cling to this particular divisive image."

If the nickname gets approval from the two tribes, that approval can be revoked at any point, according to the agreement.

The school says it already has approval from the Spirit Lake Tribe in a resolution passed there in December 2000. That resolution will need to be confirmed in writing.

However, His Horse Is Thunder told the Herald he doesn't see the Standing Rock Sioux changing its position opposing the nickname.

"There's a lot of conversations that we can have in the next up-to-three years, and I personally believe there's going to be a lot of positive things that come out of those conversations, no matter what happens in the long run," said Johnson, the UND spokesman.

A long history

The school adopted the Fighting Sioux nickname in 1930. Until then, its athletic teams were called the Flickertails.

Debate over the nickname dates to the 1970s and heated up again early this decade when Ralph Engelstad, a Las Vegas entrepreneur and former UND goalie, threatened to back out of a deal to give the school $100 million for a new hockey arena and other unspecified programs if the school changed its nickname.

The state's higher education board voted unanimously to keep the name and logo. The arena opened in 2001, emblazoned with the Sioux logo everywhere: Over building entrances, in the granite concourse, on doors, railings, seats and floorboards beneath center ice.

If the school does not win approval from the tribes in the three-year period, it would transition to a new name and logo by Aug. 15, 2011, the agreement says.

Some of the logos could stay and still satisfy the NCAA's rules for hosting playoff games, including "items of historical significance" such as banners, photographs, trophies, sculptures and plaques, along with the arena's in-floor granite logos. Other logos would have a schedule for replacement.

Jeanotte said the debate has been "quite disruptive" on campus, with Indian students feeling forced to explain their opinions, whether they feel strongly or not.

Logo issue for Indian students

Student B.J. Rainbow, president of the school's Indian Association, said he believes most Indian students he's in contact with are against the logo, but said some are indifferent and some support it.

"It consumes you. For me, I have long hair, I'm dark-complected," he said. "Either I get asked or else people don't say [anything] to me and they just stare at me."

Jeanotte said that even if the logo goes away in three years, "there has to be reconciliation here on our campus, with our Indian community, our Indian programs, and the overall campus."

Pam Louwagie • 612-673-1702

Pam Louwagie • plouwagie@startribune.com