"Recent votes and elections at Spirit Lake and Standing Rock re-affirm what has long been obvious: the controversy over the logo is as disruptively divisive in tribal communities as it is on campus and everywhere else.
Further, and using the lens required for educators, the logo referendum at Spirit Lake certifies that a third of tribal members there object to UND’s use of their name and cultural imagery for sports-play and product marketing. No university in the 21st century can use a culture and race-based sports name or logo in the face of such significant objection by tribal members.
But this intensive and selective focus on just two of the “namesake” tribes is inappropriate in the first place, and those of us working to change the name must also avoid the temptation to reduce complex and sovereign tribal matters to proxy votes on the logo issue.
Time to shift the paradigm: Spirit Lake and Standing Rock have been singled out for the spotlight under settlement terms in a lawsuit that was illegitimate in the first place."
Get the Story:Sharon Carson: Logo remains 'disruptively divisive' (The Grand Forks Herald 10/5)
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