Univ. of ND will use Fighting Sioux nickname
DALE WETZELDALE WETZEL, Associated Press?
?North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger, center, and Jaeger's elections director, Lee Ann Oliver, right, dig through stacks of referedum petitions on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, in the secretary of state's office in the North Dakota Capitol in Bismarck, N.D., as Reed Soderstrom, left, a Minot attorney, looks on. Soderstrom is chairman of a referendum campaign to require the University of North Dakota to use its Fighting Sioux athletics nickname and a logo that features the profile of an American Indian warrior. The university wants to retire the nickname and logo, which the NCAA considers offensive. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel)
North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger, center, and Jaeger's elections director, Lee Ann Oliver, right, dig through stacks of referedum petitions on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, in the secretary of state's office in the North Dakota Capitol in Bismarck, N.D., as Reed Soderstrom, left, a Minot attorney, looks on. Soderstrom is chairman of a referendum campaign to require the University of North Dakota to use its Fighting Sioux athletics nickname and a logo that features the profile of an American Indian warrior. The university wants to retire the nickname and logo, which the NCAA considers offensive. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel)
Archie Fool Bear, of Fort Yates, N.D., a former Standing Rock Sioux tribal councilman, carries a box of petitions ito North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger's office in the North Dakota Capitol in Bismarck, N.D., on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. The petitions ask for a statewide referendum on whether the University of North Dakota should be required to keep its Fighting Sioux nickname and a logo that features the profile of an American Indian warroir. Behind Fool Bear is Minot attorney Reed Soderstrom, the chairman of the referendum campaign. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel)
Charles Tuttle, a backer of the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname, watches as a woman signs petitions supporting the nickname on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, in front of the federal courthouse in Bismarck, N.D. Nickname advocates planned to turn in the petitions to Secretary of State Al Jaeger before midnight Tuesday, hoping they had enough signatures to force a statewide vote on whether the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, N.D., should have to keep the Fighting Sioux nickname despite the possibility of NCAA sanctions. The NCAA considers the nickname and a university American Indian logo to be racially offensive. The dog is Tuttle's Italian cane corso, Bella. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel)
In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, Minot attorney Reed Soderstrom, left, chairman of a referendum campaign to require the University of North Dakota to use its Fighting Sioux nickname and an American Indian profile logo for its sports teams, signs some petition paperwork in the North Dakota secretary of state's office in the North Dakota Capitol in Bismarck, N.D. shortly after he and a group of nickname supporters delivered the petitions late Tuesday night. State elections director Lee Ann Oliver, center, and deputy secretary of state Jim Silrum, right, work to sort the petitions. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel)
North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger, left, Jaeger's elections director, Lee Ann Oliver, center, and Jaeger's chief deputy, Jim Silrum, right, dig through stacks of referedum petitions on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, in the secretary of state's office in the North Dakota Capitol in Bismarck, N.D. Jaeger, Oliver and Silrum were counting referendum petitions that demand a statewide vote on whether the University of North Dakota should be required to use its Fighting Sioux athletics nickname and a logo that features the profile of an American Indian warrior. The university wants to retire the nickname and logo, which the NCAA considers offensive. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel)
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) ? The University of North Dakota will resume using its contentious Fighting Sioux nickname despite threats from the NCAA, the school's president said Wednesday, marking the latest twist in a years-long fight about a name that some consider offensive.
A state law was repealed last year that required the university to use the nickname and a logo that shows the profile of an American Indian warrior. But supporters of the name filed petitions late Tuesday demanding that the issue be put to a statewide vote.
University President Robert Kelley said the school decided to resume using the name and logo to respect the state's referendum process, which requires that the pro-nickname law be in effect while the state reviews the petition signatures.
"I want to reaffirm our respect for the laws of the state and the processes guaranteed under the North Dakota Constitution," Kelley said in a written statement Wednesday afternoon.
The NCAA has told the university that continued use of the nickname and logo would expose the school to sanctions, including preventing the university from hosting post-season sports tournaments and banning its athletes from wearing uniforms with the logo or nickname in postseason play.
The dispute began in 2006, when the NCAA called on 19 schools with American Indian nicknames, logos and mascots that it considered "hostile and abusive" to Indians. The University of North Dakota is the only school left where the issue is in serious dispute.
The college sports governing body ordered the schools to change their nicknames or obtain permission from local tribes to keep using them. Most changed their names, although the Florida State Seminoles and the Central Michigan Chippewas were among the schools that got tribal permission to keep their nicknames.
North Dakota challenged the NCAA edict in court. In a settlement, the school agreed to begin retiring its nickname if it could not obtain consent to continue its use from North Dakota's Standing Rock and Spirit Lake Sioux tribes by Nov. 30, 2010.
Spirit Lake tribal members endorsed the name. But the Standing Rock Sioux's tribal council, which opposed the nickname, has declined to support it or to allow its tribal members to vote.
Supporters of the nickname, including some members of the Standing Rock Sioux, said they turned in petitions with more than 17,000 signatures; the required minimum is 13,452 names. Under the referendum process detailed in the North Dakota Constitution, the pro-nickname law must remain in force while Secretary of State Al Jaeger reviews the petitions.
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