GF Herald Editor Won’t Accept Positive Fighting Sioux Referendum
A few years ago the NCAA jumped in (reversing previous decisions) and banned the nickname from NCAA competitions. UND sued over a number of legal issues. We had a winning case when the pinheads on the Hoeven appointed Board of Higher Education decided to settle rather than pursue their winning court case. The settlement was structured in a way that made it next to impossible to keep the name. In other words the Board of Higher Education overruled the public.
The only out was to get not one but two of the local Sioux tribes to agree to UND’s use of the name. While one tribe was willing to talk, the other wasn’t. Surveys conducted by the ND Bureau of Government affairs (affiliated with UND) and Sports Illustrated magazine have shown that Native American’s support use of Indian named college teams. However the tribal leaders are a different story. They refused to discuss the issue and refused to bring it up to a vote.
That’s when the next to impossible did happen. A group of name supporters at one of the tribes did a petition drive to force a vote of the tribe. That action seems to have encouraged the other tribe to also hold a vote.
It appears that the anti-Sioux name folks have maybe been beaten after all.
But the loudmouths are now pledging to go on, against the will of the overwhelming majority of local citizens.
The distinction is key to understanding the entrenched positions on both sides. Supporters of the name see it as a political issue. Opponents see it as a human rights question, and therefore as a moral issue.
While it’s impossible to know for sure, it’s possible that the name might be supported in these referendums.
But will that resolve the issue?
Almost certainly not.
Opponents see this as a moral issue, remember, and they’re not likely to give it up no matter the election results this time around. They’ll continue to raise the issue on campus and in native communities.
That means that the issue will fester — until the name is changed.
It seems to me that this is the political reality and that the best move is to give up the name. That’s the only way to put the issue decisively behind us, and to move on.
This is the position that the Herald has held pretty consistently put forward in its editorials, and that it repeated as recently as January.
The author of this piece of garbage, Mike Jacobs, Editor and Publisher of the Grand Forks Herald, has been on a jihad against the Sioux nickname for as long as I can remember. Except for a couple hundred idiots on the UND faculty and administration he didn’t convince anyone.
Now he’s threatening that if the Sioux people decide they want UND to honor their name he’s going to fight it. After all to him it’s a moral issue.
It’s not a moral issue. It’s a political correctness issue where a few pinheads that consider themselves better than the rest of us want to tell everyone what to do.
How stupid of them to go against the wishes of 75% of the public. How arrogant are they are to say they know better than the Sioux tribes themselves.
Mike Jacobs has driven away thousands of subscribers with his idiotic, elitist position on the Sioux name. Why in the world does he still have a job?
