Dance, [Cowboy, Militiaman, Cavalryman]
A few days ago I posted at Electric Venom about the demise of the tradition of Chief Illiniwek, until last night the mascot of the University of Illinois. After a pitched battle between Indian confederations grievance-mongers, university professors, and students and administration, dragging on many years, the NCAA last year set sports sanctions for UI, and the board announced last week that the chief would be discontinued. A comment from a graduate of U of I currently working there was helpful in tracing the scope of the decision–that it wasn’t just the NCAA, but the fact that Illinois’s legislature and governor were against retaining the chief as well, which the News-Gazette’s article does mention.
I got my master’s degree at Illinois, and this was simmering when I was there too, though I have not been as emotionally involved as the majority of undergrads who go to games and get attached to school traditions, and I don’t know that I agree with ProphetJoe’s suggestion that there should have been a public vote. (Or his suggestion that the board was against the Chief because some of them are Michigan grads, although the idea does make me chuckle.) Who would vote? All citizens of Illinois? All students and faculty? All residents of Champaign-Urbana?
Somebody will correct me if I get any of the legalese wrong, but it sounds like the legislature was more than happy to let the NCAA do their dirty work for them. If the legislature had enacted this itself, theoretically the U could’ve sued the state government for abridgement of freedom of speech, but how does that work when the suing institution is funded in part by the government? Doesn’t that make them a state actor themselves? The NCAA, however, has in previous cases, bewilderingly, been ruled both a state actor and NOT a state actor for purposes of Constitutional law, and I don’t know what the precedent currently is. I do not like that it has come to this; while I don’t think tradition should be the sole arbiter of what is retained, I don’t think the Chief was hurting enough people that he should have been steamrolled. Sensibilities, maybe. People, no. (more…)