Chief Illiniwek Supporter

I'm certainly no expert, but I'd be willing to bet that an employer suing its employees would have to foot the legal bill for both parties. Tenure is probably written into the contract, and from there they go on "free speech" grounds.

Of course this same child never sees the "I heart the Sioux" t-shirts or bumper stickers or whatever. And the child never ever seems to wonder why people would want to "kill" the Eagles. Or Dolphins. Or Colts. Or Browns. Or Texans. Or Cowboys. Or Lions. Or Vikings. Or Patriots. Or the Saints. Or the Padres. And that's probably better. My advice (at this level of maturity) is to ignore them. I'll admit that wouldn't have been my advice ten years ago, but that's what I have to say today. At Illinois, they DEMANDED the right to be in front of the main gates in an effort to maximize their own visibility, and would parade thru campus blocking traffic with their own self-proclaimed "security" personnel. As your school has found out, they're an incredibly small number of malcontents with big mouths and little to say. The less you pay attention to them, the sooner they'll figure out they need to go somewhere else to get the attention they crave. (Sounds like you're dealing with a five year old child, doesn't it?) For a slightly different perspective, the folks at FSU couldn't guarantee their saftey when they showed up-the best solution was to literally fence them in at their protest sites. I guess FSU fans took great delight in literally rattling their cage on the way to the football game.

One reason I didn't consider it a "bargaining chip" was that if you were the "Fighting Cucumber Planters" the number of opponents to your nickname would be far less than the number today. But OTOH, this could be one more lever to get Notre Dame into the debate, which would end this entire battle immediately. It may not be the exact same group of people, but if you should change your name I'm quite confident there will be someone protesting it no matter how benign you think it is.

"....chilling effect on academic freedom...." "....restraining free speech...." We went thru this at Illinois. The academic world is quite different from the real world everyone else has to live in.

If the NCAA would offer that, I'd think most North Dakota fans would take it and run like a thief, laughing so hard it would make their sides ache for the rest of all time. Personally, I can't imagine the NCAA offering this one, but who knows what will happen. And if this did happen, I wonder what they (the NCAA) would say to William and Mary (just to choose someone else that was screwed over). IIRC, that school was forced to drop the two feathers they had as a logo but the NCAA was okay with the name "Tribe". It will be interesting to see whatever happens. And one hundred years from now, if anyone can make any sense of what all of this mess created by the NCAA actually meant, they'll be wondering "what were they thinking?"

I guess I'm wondering what the people on this board (and I'm specifically excluding the University administrators, trustees and so on) would be willing to "give up" as part of the settlement. AFAIK, you have two bargaining chips: the name "Sioux" and the logo. As I have read the board, I'd say most of the people here are unwilling to sacrifice either of those things. Therefore I couldn't see any resolution that would be supported by the average North Dakota fan. (And that's why I excluded the administrators from my argument above. The only way I could imagine the University saying they were making progress is if they were willing to give up something under certain conditions-but they wanted to present it as a fait acompli to the public, avoiding a political backlash during negotiations.)

I'll find it interesting to see what (if anything) your University wanted sealed. I guess the NCAA has said they wanted to see if the alum who donated the arena put any conditions on the donation. I had to wonder "and even if he did that: so what difference does that make to this case?" They also said something about contracts, and again, I couldn't think of anything that your school could have done that every other school does. In short, I'd be suprised if the documents that are currently sealed aren't mostly NCAA-initiated memos, etc. in a ratio of about 10-1.

Its JMHO, but I think that any resolution would need a tribal signoff on the use of the name-and I don't think that's close to happening. Therefore, those embarrassing memos will see the light of day sooner or later. It just seems to me that if this judge is holding out hope for a out-of-court settlement, he could be in for a long wait. One of my favorite subjects too: why limit this to those Native Americans who can trace their tribes to locations within the current boundaries of the continental United States? Shouldn't we respect all religions? Shouldn't the Longhorns have to change to avoid offending people who worship sacred cows? How about Alabama giving up that elephant because some societies worship elephants? And finally, my own university got quite an award: its called a "Worsty", and the Illinois Press Association handed it out because the University violated the Open Meetings Act when they canned Chief. It's well deserved. A Worsty for our cowardly Board of Trustees

Wow, those poor kids will never get anywhere in life. And while it was just a rental, I really have pahked my cah in Havahd Yahd. (Okay, okay: really, it was just near Havahd Yahd.) BTW, I visited the Statue of the Three Lies on the Harvard campus. Maybe that color thing is what has caused a University with the motto "Veritas" to be such a pathological liar.

See??? I TOLD you this would happen!! (Just having a little fun here HockeyMom. Nothing personal.)

Wait until the gender equity zealots start talking about the Rams, Knights, Bulls, Cowboys, etc. The entire graduating class from Texas A&M immediately goes into farming, don't they? Syracuse, Dartmouth, Milliken: they're all just colors. Now is that good or bad for their self-esteem? One of two things seem to be applicable here: either "figures lie and liars figure" or the old "lies, damned lies and statistics".

And of course, no more Raiders or Vandals. What about the Blue Demons, Blue Devils and the assorted Red Devils, etc.? Those kids must be totally messed up. Especially when they play the Saints. Imagine the poor kid who was all set to take his finals in either Law or Medicine: then he turns on the TV and sees that the Indians or Braves are winning the World Series. Seven years of college down the drain.

But I don't wanna be a pirate!! (Or a cowboy, for that matter...)

At Illinois, the side that will not comply with a Freedom of Information Act request is the President of the University. He will happily tell you that its time to "get over it" if you want to know more about why Chief Illiniwek is gone. But curiously, when the whiners were in full voice saying that Chief should go, he was not quoted as telling anyone to "get over it". At that time we had a Board of Trustees resolution supporting Chief. At that time, it was important that all sides be heard. But now that the Board has reversed its stance (with the help of some new ultra-PC appointees) its important to forget about Chief, according to our President. No more questions from the people who support him. http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/sto...s-2948254.shtml http://www.news-gazette.com/news/opinions/...did_with_public http://www.news-gazette.com/news/opinions/..._what_white_was Any academic from the University will be immediately demonized by the school's self-appointed intelligentsia if he/she dares to say that he supports the name. edited for clarity and completeness at 9:15 pm

From the article... Hear hear!!! (applause) Start making them PAY for their silliness.

From the article.... So this only became public knowledge ten days later? Why wasn't this motion disclosed earlier? Its merely one layman's opinion, but it seems that the NCAA is trying to get the judge to define "support". Assuming the NCAA had a verbatim copy of the resolution in hand, this part of their complaint seems groundless. Further quote from the article.... A) The university made a (quite legal) contract with the largest hockey arena in the city. What does this have to do with the lawsuit? "Third Party Insinutation" can be almost anything. Pontiac has a sponsorship agreement, the Big East rents out Madison Square Garden once a year under what I'm sure is a long term agreement: the list goes on and on. How does this "impair the University's standing"?? Does the NCAA claim that they have the right to review all contracts for possible future rules violations? B) A donor made a conditional donation. Again, so what? What does that have to do with this lawsuit? If the NCAA wins, then no more hockey tournaments at the arena. What would they expect a judge to say at this point? (To rhetorically answer my own question, "They want to make the Ralph Englested group answer their questions in court".) As noted, I'm not a lawyer: but to me this just seems like a delaying tactic. And further, it shows a lack of good faith by one party in regards to the "go settle this out of court" admonishment to both parties from the judge.

Please-do not interrupt the agenda. (Actually, its probably more accurate to say "do not interrupt the trolling".)

Here's a story that may be of interest: a Sioux tribe member will be getting some scholarship money, courtesy of those who support Chief Illiniwek: http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/200...arship_to_honor I don't agree with everything that they're doing. but at least it's partially constructive. Which is a LOT more than I can say for 99.999% of the haters.

There's a long list of better uses of funds than the way the NCAA currently allocates resources. But back to the point: I can't wait for the NCAA to tell Georgia, LSU, Tennessee and a few others to drop the animals. Talk about it hitting the fan. Those schools aren't as "PC-obsessed" as Illinois. I just regret that it wasn't done sooner. I've always felt that once we started talking about Notre Dame's leprechaun, people would realize how stupid this whole thing is. I wonder if this would mean that Chief Osceola would have to come out with one of those broomstick horses?? (Awfully hard to hold a flaming spear in one hand and make the horesy-back motions with the other.) Would Tommy Trojan also have to use one of these? I wonder if they'd tell the Air Force Academy to quit using the falcon? Or Auburn to stop using an eagle? Where were these people a few years ago. This level of NCAA stupidity would have been great for Chief Illiniwek (and saved your supporters a few dollars too).

I have to vote no here. This looks a lot like Gene Hackman in the last scene of the film "La Cage Aux Follies". (in my best Seinfeld voice: Not that there's anything WRONG with that.... )

I certainly don't have any scientific data to back this up, but I agree. I think the closer you get to asking people on a one-to-one basis, the more you'd find that they aren't anywhere near as strident as their activist "leaders". I feel it

It sounds like you're familiar with the Chicago region! If so, you know that these two are practically sister communites. Much like Lake Forest and Harvey.

1) Does anyone know what % of the tribe population this Veterans Group represents? 2) One of your local tribes apparently no longer uses the term "Sioux" to represent themselves. Was this the Standing Rock group? (edit: ignore this question-apparently its the Spirit Lake group that no longer uses that moniker.)(edited at 1:00 pm Central time.)

Are Chicago and North Dakota in the same region?