So Long, Fighting Sioux
The results are still coming in, but as I write this the Fighting Sioux issue is losing 67% – 32% and the media has called the race.
It was a valiant fight, but it’s time for the Sioux nickname to go. Barring a vote on the Standing Rock reservation, or the Spirit Lake Sioux getting the NCAA to back down with their lawsuit, the people of North Dakota have spoken. It’s time for the name to go.
I’ll not be supporting the constitutional measure Sioux supporters are still collecting signatures for, though tonight one of the organizers told me there within spitting distance of having enough signatures.
I’m sad to see this outcome, and it’s not without some bitterness. I don’t think that the state’s higher ed officials have dealt with this issue in good faith. Even as they pointed their fingers at the NCAA they worked long and hard behind the scenes to undermine the nickname. I also feel for the Sioux Indians themselves. I can’t help but think that this is yet another railroad job for them, in a long history of railroad jobs they’ve been victims of. They were told for years that their opinion mattered on the nickname, that it was all about honoring them, yet at the end we learned the truth.
It was never really about them. If it were, the higher ed officials and state leaders would have been arm-in-arm with the Spirit Lake Sioux in their fight with the NCAA. But instead they chose to hang the tribe out to dry.
But, again, the people have spoken. The issue is over. My preference would be that the legislature continue the ban on UND taking up a new nickname permanently. UND can’t be the Sioux officially, but unofficially they can be the Sioux forever.
Tags: fighting sioux, North Dakota News, University of North Dakota
