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Board Advocates Dumping UND Nickname, Logo

DICKINSON, N.D.

North Dakota’s Board of Higher Education has agreed to drop the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux nickname and Indian head logo.

It’s a move intended to resolve a decades-long campus dispute about whether the name demeans American Indians.

The name and logo, which is a profile of an American Indian man with feathers and streaks of paint on his face, could still be saved if North Dakota’s Standing Rock and Spirit Lake Sioux tribes agree by Oct. 1 to give the university permission to use them for at least 30 years.

However, tribal officials say that possibility is remote.

Unless the name and logo receive tribal endorsement, they will be retired for good on Aug. 1, 2010.

The board, which met Thursday, voted 8-0 to retire the logo and nickname.



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