"For eight decades, students at Southeast Missouri State University, a mid-sized college located on the banks of the Mississippi River in rural, conservative Cape Girardeau, had proudly rooted for its sports teams, the Indians. The old-timers said the name was adopted in the mid-1920s to honor the legacy of American Indians and their warrior traditions. The teams had an Indian mascot. There was an Indian logo. And the entrance to Houck Stadium, the university’s football arena on the edge of campus, was dominated by an imposing, 30-foot-tall statue of an American Indian man.

Then as the new millennium dawned, the university’s administration decided that maybe the use of an American Indian symbol wasn’t so cool any more. In 2003 the university set up a committee to study the possibility of a name change. The committee was short-lived.

“They were run out of town because of opposition,” says Dr. Edward Leoni, a professor of health and human performance at the university. “People were in great opposition to the change.”

Undaunted, the university decided to try again two years later. University President Kenneth Dobbins asked Leoni, the faculty representative to the NCAA, to head a committee of faculty, students, alumni and boosters. Mindful of what happened in 2003, Leoni carefully planned his approach."

Get the Story:
Taking Action to Abandon Offensive American Indian Mascots Often Mired in Controversy (Diverse Issues in Higher Education 5/19)