I am writing to strongly denounce the historical and recent affronts to the Native American community at Dartmouth and to offer the support of the athletics department in playing a leading role to combat racial, ethnic and sexist ignorance and intolerance on our campus.
At the same time, I must offer a sincere apology to the Native American community, and the Dartmouth community as a whole, for an event that will understandably offend and hurt people within our community. In late December, we will host a men’s ice hockey tournament that includes the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux. UND is one of 14 colleges or universities that continue to maintain a Native American name and image to represent their athletic teams.
Let me state clearly that UND’s position is offensive and wrong. When we scheduled UND nearly two years ago to participate in our tournament, we did so without considering their team’s nickname and symbol. Perhaps we should have, but I deeply regret that we didn’t.
On Friday, as I was traveling on College business, a member of my staff met with the Native American Council to discuss our hockey tournament and to offer our apology for the pain that it will cause. In the days and weeks ahead, I will develop a specific and continuing plan to address issues of respect and tolerance within the athletic department as well as considering a policy for scheduling athletic contests against institutions that support offensive nicknames and symbols.
This is my response, a draft of which was sent to The Dartmouth:
I was surprised by Josie Harper’s letter apologizing for the “pain” caused by hosting the UND Fighting Sioux at their hockey tournament. I had no idea that Native Americans were present in such great numbers at Dartmouth and were so easily offended by our state’s tribute to the brave spirit of the Sioux warriors.
Right now North Dakota is under attack by a select few out-of-state advocates of political correctness. They claim our logo, drawn by a Native American artist, is “hostile and abusive.” I invite them to actually visit us sometime. Our highway signs and Highway Patrol cars have Native American figures on them. The hospital near my house has an area devoted to burning sage and other traditional Native American healing practices. UND itself hosts dozens of programs for Native Americans including the INMED program, which trains one fifth of the nation’s Indian physicians, as well as cultural programs, eight publications, and seven student organizations.
The only oppression I’ve heard of is of Native students who don’t mind the nickname. They’re treated like the Midwest’s version of an “Uncle Tom” by the PC police. Archie Fool Bear, chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe judicial committee, says his tribe’s leadership doesn’t represent the vast majority of tribal members. He said, “We went to a hockey game, and they talked about the courage and integrity of the Sioux people. We looked at each other like, ‘Wow, we don’t even honor our Sioux warriors or veterans like this on the reservation.’ ” How do the politically correct crowd honor this tribal elder? By trying to oust him from the tribal government.
We’d be just fine if a bunch of out of state PC liberals would quit trying to tell us how things need to be out here in flyover country. Perhaps if our team showed up named the UND Brave White Men we’d be more welcome. Then again, every single special interest riding Josie Harper’s politically correct bandwagon would then have a unifying reason to apologize for North Dakota’s painful presence. In the mean time, the only place we’ll apply real pain is on the ice, where it belongs…and actually exists.
Political correctness is insane. Heaven forbid we should offend anybody, anywhere, at any time! That is, of course, they happen to be white, heterosexual, Christian, male, or any combination thereof. Those are oppressive qualities and should be attacked at any opportunity.
This post was originally written on November 23rd, 2006. It resulted in my response being printed on the Dartmouth Review website (although I don’t know if it ever made it to print).