Ivy Apologizes for Hosting ‘Fighting Sioux’

When Dartmouth College decided to host the University of North Dakota for a men’s hockey tournament next month, the New Hampshire Ivy booked more than just an ice-rink fight.

Its competitor, the University of North Dakota (UND) Fighting Sioux, has drawn ire for its tribe-inspired monicker, leading Dartmouth’s director of athletics to apologize last Wednesday in the school’s newspaper for scheduling the match-up.

Although the Crimson men’s hockey team played UND last year, no Harvard athletic teams are currently scheduled to play the Fighting Sioux in upcoming seasons.

“Our scheduling policy is in line with the [National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)] list of teams that they published a year ago with what they deemed to be offensive mascots,” said Chuck V. Sullivan, the director of athletic communications at Harvard. Sullivan said that no games have been scheduled with those teams since the list was published.

Assistant Director of Athletic Communications C. Casey Hart said that he does not expect Harvard to issue an apology similar to that of Dartmouth’s.

Harvard Women’s Basketball is scheduled to play the Arkansas State University Indians on Dec. 3, but the mascot does not appear to be a major point of contention for players.

“We hadn’t talked about this at all,” wrote Elizabeth L. Altmaier ’10 in an online message. “We play whomever our coaches schedule, and since our goal is to win, we don’t actually care about the other team’s mascot in any way, shape, or form.”

UND is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the NCAA over last year’s decision to prohibit the 18 schools that use Native American imagery from displaying those marks on their uniforms in postseason play. Those schools also cannot host postseason games.

“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,” wrote JoAnn “Josie” Harper, Dartmouth’s director of athletics and recreation, in a letter to the editor published in The Dartmouth. “UND’s position is offensive and wrong.”

Many members of the Native American community at Harvard support the apology.

“It is inappropriate to have these mascots representing native people—they don’t,” said Carmen D. Lopez, a member of the Navajo nation and the executive director of the Harvard University Native American Program. “I think they are legacies of stereotypes and really portray native peoples in caricatures,” she said. “It’s part of an American myth that we need to rectify.”

Leah R. Lussier ’07, the alumni coordinator for Native Americans at Harvard College—citing research conducted by Stephanie Fryberg at the University of Arizona—said there is a negative emotional and psychological toll on Native American students at schools that use Native American imagery.