The following transcript is from the 4/14/00 Chief Illiniwek dialogue "intake session". It is an unedited excerpt from the original U.I. document.

I therefore wish to document here some of the ways in which the Chief seriously compromises my own research and teaching and actively prevents the development of American Indian studies on this campus.

Since accepting the position at UIUC four years ago, my scholarly reputation among Native communities has been severely compromised. My professional ethics have been repeated questioned and my future research plans are placed in jeopardy. When I travel out west to do research nowadays, I am wary of driving around with Illinois license plates since on more than one occasion I have been asked if I come from, quote, that University with the racist mascot, unquote.

When I took a group of freshmen to the annual pow-wow at the University of Iowa last year as part of their discovery class, they were confronted with similar questions, and reported how confused and deeply ashamed they felt of their school and its so-called honored tradition.

In the classroom, I find that the dancing mascot mis-educates by creating and supporting oversimplified and inaccurate views of indigenous peoples and their cultures by confining them to a romanticized past. As such, it contributes to the development of cultural biases and prejudices, rather than educating against them, unintended consequences indeed.

This is why this is an important educational issue and why seven national academic associations and the NCA all voice strong opposition to this practice. If the Board doesn't understand this, then they have the solemn responsibility to set aside personal feelings and nostalgia and defer to the expertise of those who are educators. Nothing less than the future national and international reputation of this institution are now at stake.

The presence of the Chief makes it difficult if not impossible for us to recruit Native American students, because rightly or wrongly, this campus is perceived as racist and hostile to Native peoples. All the talk about honoring Indians rings hollow when we have never offered even basic academic and cultural support services for Native students.

The development of an American Indian program is compromised because the Native American faculty upon whom the success and viability of such program will depend will not come to this campus.

Since it appears that both sides of this debate are interested in such developments, I suggest that a viable middle ground could be found, if the dancing Indian and the logo were replaced with an Illini American Indian Studies Program whose charter would include an annual Illini festival of Native American music, dance and other performing arts in honor of the Illini peoples past and present.

This issue is about diversity, whether this institution unintentionally educates the young people of this state in ways that perpetuate ignorance and intolerance for cultural differences or equips them to participate fully in a multi- ethnic nation and global work place of the future. Times and moral sensibilities have changed radically since Illiniwek was invented, and history teaches us that American traditions work best when they change with the times. Thank you.

MODERATOR GARIPPO: J. Michael O'Byrne.

See the U.I. Dialogue on Chief Illiniwek page for more transcripts and information.