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 want to bring to your attention things that people have forgotten, and this has to do with veterans and recently you will see veterans in Wal-Mart stores fund raising for a memorial on the mall in Washington, DC, to my knowledge there has never been a memorial to veterans. What you are not aware of is that in world war II, the 82nd Airborne out of Fayetteville, North Carolina, which my dad is one of the handful of survivors along with four Native American Dakota Sioux Indian men in Minnesota.

I want to read what, what is a veteran by Father Denis Edward O'Brien with the US Marine Corps. "You can't tell a vet just by looking. It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to demonstrate."

That right is our right through the US Constitution and the supreme law of the land, First Amendment rights, freedom of speech which is denied to some people.

When Indian people decide to take on an issue like Charlene Teters or Michael Haney, if somebody doesn't want to hear what they want to say, then we want to teach them a lesson and throw them in jail, which happens to a lot of Native Americans. Charlene was in jail for 24 hours, which she was invoking her First Amendment rights. And I think that's very wrong.

That's why I wanted to remind you of this from the 82nd Airborne because these people are the ones who gave you your freedom to sit on this Board at the University of Illinois.

But that freedom does not always exist for Native American in employment or religious freedom. We express ourselves in dance and music which Chief Illiniwek does not portray. It is a mockery for the University to retain Chief Illiniwek. It is yet another incident of power and greed at the expense of the American Indian culture.

Where are your values? Is money your God? Because I hear threats today about taking money back, donating money if you don't, if you don't retire Chief Illiniwek. I get tired of things coming down to the almighty dollar.

One other thing that I want to remind you of the 82nd Airborne, these men are in the honor guard at the club in Minnesota, the Indian Club. They are in the honor guard and most people are not aware of when I give presentations to grade school children in the fourth grade that under the Lincoln administration, the largest mass execution occurred in Minnesota. They hung 38 Indian leaders for retaliating because the government failed to follow through with their obligations and they were starving their families, their men, women and children, their elders. And the parents say to me, well, we don't know about that. I said that's right, because you are not going to find it in a textbook. That's why I am here to tell you this. This is the most spiritual group of people I have ever met in my entire life.

If you were to view the documentary "In Whose Honor," your trustees Gravenhorst and I think his name is Lamont say, well, maybe American Indians don't understand. Maybe they should attend a game at the stadium. Excuse me, but we understand, we are highly mentally intelligent and what we understand is that we have tried to be diplomatic in asking that you retire Chief Illiniwek as taxpayers in Illinois. And on this video -- I ran out of time. In this video, there's a man who thinks we are foreigners in our own country who don't pay taxes. Wrong.

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