Guest Post by Morbo
And now an update from the world of sports: The National Collegiate Athletic Association has informed a state university in western Pennsylvania that it must stop calling its sports teams “Indians.”
If officials at Indiana University of Pennsylvania don’t drop the name, the NCAA says, the institution will be ineligible to host post-season tournaments. Reported the Associated Press:
The university had appealed the NCAA’s decision in August to include it on a list of 18 schools that were banned from using American Indian mascots or nicknames during postseason tournaments because the nicknames or images were “hostile or abusive” to American Indians.
In its decision, the NCAA noted that even if no offense was intended, the use of the nickname is still problematic. The term, the NCAA ruled, “could be construed as a stereotypical reference to Native Americans.”
I have something of a special interest in this question since I graduated from this somewhat obscure, oddly named university about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh. Although it has zero prestige, the school is a good institution with solid academics and a growing reputation. (U.S. Rep. John Murtha did some graduate work there.) The university attracted me for two reasons: It was extremely affordable, and it admitted me even though my SATs were, let’s say, less than stellar.
When I was a student there in the early ’80s, the football team was named the “Big Indians” and the mascot was a tall white guy who would run out on the field at halftime wearing phony buckskins and a long feathered headdress. He had paint smeared on his face and brandished a tomahawk.
I wince to think of it now. The university seemed to realize it had a problem. Fourteen years ago, the Indian mascot was dropped in favor of a bear. Yet the sports teams retained the name “Indians.”
This is a problem that plagues several colleges and pro teams as well — consider the even more offensive Washington Redskins. Defenders argue that these nicknames are really a tribute to the native people and aren’t meant to offend.
I agree to a point — the names aren’t meant to offend. But the fact is that they do anyway.
The use of them and of associated costumed mascots propagates crude stereotypes. Imagine a team called the “Blackskins” whose mascot was a white man in blackface. He wouldn’t last a minute.
Critics are already carping about the NCAA’s crackdown, accusing that body of political correctness run amok. I wish they could see that old Indian mascot. Maybe then they’d feel differently.
As for my alma mater, my remedy is radical: The school takes it name from its location in the city of Indiana and the surrounding county, also named Indiana. It confuses people to see a school in Pennsylvania with the word “Indiana” in its name. The school should become something less confusing. I recommend the University of Western Pennsylvania. At the same time, it can dump the Indian nickname and either keep the bear or adopt another local animal for its mascot. Deer are all over the place there. Why not become the University of Western Pennsylvania Bucks?
Maybe I should have gone to Slippery Rock University after all….