My wife is an alum of William & Mary and received this letter from the college president:
I am compelled to say, at the outset, how powerfully ironic it is for the College of William & Mary to face sanction for athletic transgression at the hands of the NCAA. The Association has applied its mascot standards in ways so patently inconsistent and arbitrary as to demean the entire undertaking. Beyond this, William & Mary is widely acknowledged to be a principal exemplar of the NCAA's purported, if unrealized, ideals.....
.....Meanwhile, across the country, in the face of massive academic underperformance, embarrassing misbehaviors on and off the field, and grotesque commercialization of intercollegiate athletics, the NCAA has proven hapless, or worse. It is galling that a university with such a consistent and compelling record of doing things the right way is threatened with punishment by an organization whose house, simply put, is not in order.
full text here:
http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=6869
It is ironic since William & Mary was originally founded as an Indian school, hence there nickname being the Tribe. I think his point about the NCAA applying its standards that are inconsistent is the root of this whole problem. On some levels I can see where Indians are offended. Personally, I find the mascot "Redskins" to be an offensive name for a team. Names like Seminoles, Illini, Indians, etc. seem no more disrespectful than Sooners or Minutemen. They denote certain groups of people and often use the characteristics of those groups as a rallying point.
Where I think some institutions, both schools and professional teams, cross the line is in the depiction of those groups, such as the Illini and the Cleveland Indians. Underlying all of this is what many Indians feel is a theft of their cultural identity and it gives them a stake in how that is portrayed, if it is to be portrayed at all. If you know any Indians you will know that this is important to many of them. In the case of the Seminoles it seems they have the backing of the Seminole Nation with regard to their mascot, consult with them about how it is portrayed. This seems like a good situation and one that will benefit both the college and the Seminoles.
