NCAA ponders future of Indian nicknames

By Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY
After wrestling with the politically delicate issue for more than four years, the NCAA may be close to rendering a verdict on the use of Native American mascots and nicknames — from Indians and Braves to Redmen and Savages — by 30 of its member universities.
The governing body will conduct the first in a series of summer meetings next month and could decide by August whether it can and should impose a ban on Indian imagery, which critics charge is demeaning and even racist.
Ultimate responsibility falls to the NCAA's highest body, the 17-member Executive Committee, which meets in early August.
Whether the association will or legally must continue to yield to individual campus discretion — as the NCAA does on such matters as minority hiring — is uncertain. Targets range from Florida State (Seminoles) and Utah (Utes) to lower-division institutions with particularly provocative nicknames: Southeastern Oklahoma (Savages) and Carthage, Wis. (Redmen).
"What we can do is educate, get the information out there to you," says Southwestern Athletic Conference Commissioner Robert Vowels, who heads the Minority Interests and Opportunities Committee. "I can't sit here and say right now that we can enforce something or establish a penalty structure."
One possibility, says the NCAA's Corey Jackson, who works closely with the committee, is a lever the association has applied to the issue of flying the Confederate flag or incorporating in their state flags. Two states that do, South Carolina and Mississippi, are barred from hosting association championships.
The NCAA's attention to the mascot issue grew out of the flag flap four years ago.

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/other/2005-05-15-native-americans-ncaa_x.htm