UND to face sanctions for continuing to use Fighting Sioux nickname
The University of North Dakota will face NCAA penalties for continuing to use the Fighting Sioux nickname, an NCAA executive told the university Tuesday.
University President Robert Kelley had asked the NCAA to reconsider an earlier settlement agreement after the state passed a law requiring the University to keep the name and logo.
Kelley received a response from NCAA executive Bernard Franklin today declining that request. Franklin said the new state law does not change NCAA policy, which says the nickname and logo are hostile and abusive.
As a result, the University of North Dakota won't be allowed to host NCAA postseason tournament games. Its teams won't be allowed to wear the name and logo on their uniforms in postseason events.
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"It's not a good thing for us," said Peter Johnson, spokesperson for UND's President Kelley. "We're going back on the sanction list, it looks like. It's never a good thing to be on anybody's sanction list."
Johnson said the University of North Dakota has been stuck in the middle of a battle between the state Legislature, advocacy groups, and the judicial system.
"Up until these bills were making their way through the Legislature, we had been preparing to transition away from the nickname and logo, and that's the direction the athletic department had taken," Johnson said. "So now we need to sort of reprepare to continue to be the Fighting Sioux and to use that logo."
The university agreed in October 2007 to discontinue using the nickname and logo by Aug. 15, 2011, unless it received approval from North Dakota's Spirit Lake and Standing Rock Sioux tribes.
Spirit Lake tribal members endorsed the nickname and logo in a referendum, and the tribe's governing council followed. The Standing Rock Sioux's tribal council, which has long opposed the nickname, has declined to change its stand.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
