GRAND FORKS, N.D.
University of North Dakota President Charles Kupchella says the school’s fight to keep its Fighting Sioux nickname has gone too far to quit now.
Kupchella spoke with faculty leaders last week, responding to a nonbinding University Senate resolution passed last month calling for UND to drop the nickname and logo.
He said leaders of the Spirit Lake tribe, the closest Sioux tribe to UND, told him during a recent visit that they will not change a tribal resolution approved in 2000 that gives conditional support to the nickname and logo as long as it is treated with respect.
The NCAA has put UND on a list of schools with Indian nicknames and logos that are considered “hostile or abusive,” saying those nicknames and logos will be banned from postseason play. UND’s second appeal is pending before the NCAA.
Kupchella told faculty members that the state Board of Higher Education in 2000 ordered the school to use the nickname.
Given that and the pending appeal, Kupchella said, “It would hardly be cool for me to go back to the board and say ‘we’re not going to do that.”’
