Breaking News: UND Nickname, Logo Retired

The University of North Dakota will no longer be known as the Fighting Sioux, nor will they have the logo that they have donned for decades as the State Board of Higher Education has voted to retire both effective immediately.

You can head over to Goon’s World or the Grand Forks Herald’s Website for more, but for now I just want to hop onto my soapbox for a second: Two of the three tribes voted on the nickname issue, and both voted to keep the nickname. The Board didn’t wait for the third (the Standing Rock Sioux tribe) to vote before the nickname was retired, but I don’t believe blame should go to them as the tribe had plenty of time to vote, yet dragged their heels. Clearly this signifies that the tribal leaders didn’t want the nickname, but didn’t want to allow their people to vote either. Waiting it out allows them to turn the State board of higher education into the scapegoats. Lastly, even if you are partially Native American you get a full scholarship (or almost a full scholarship) to the University of North Dakota because of it. With the loss of the nickname, a lot of that funding goes away. So basically the tribal leaders put two words and a picture above the futures of thousands of children. Nice work.