Scalping Sense

By Reid Alan Cox

I never thought I’d be rooting for Florida State.  After all, I’ve been a fan of the Florida Gators for years, ever since Steve Spurrier led the school to football prominence and a national championship in the 1990s.  But now I’ll be supporting the Seminoles, too, as they seek victory not in a stadium but in a court.

That’s because last week the NCAA branded Florida State and 17 other colleges and universities racist for using “hostile and abusive” Indian (or must I say Native American) “mascots, nicknames or imagery” in their athletic programs.  The new policy prohibits these colleges and universities “from displaying” their Indian mascots or nicknames at “any of the 88 NCAA championships” and bans the schools “from hosting any NCAA championship competition.”  Indeed, it even goes so far as to target “cheerleaders, dance teams and band uniforms,” while telling the schools that have already been “awarded” an NCAA championship site that they have to “cover up” any Indian references.  In other words, the NCAA really has become the “National Censorship in Athletics Association.”

But the Seminoles aren’t just playing defense against this politically correct drive to censor their school’s traditions.  Instead, Florida State is going on offense with the University’s President vowing legal action to strike down the absurd policy.  And, if there’s any justice at all, the Seminoles should win.

Not only is the NCAA’s policy blatantly ridiculous as a matter of common sense, it isn’t even logically or legally consistent.

Indeed, the policy makes no attempt to define or instruct which Indian “mascots, nicknames and imagery” are “hostile and abusive” and which are not.  Instead, the NCAA simply listed the 18 colleges and universities that a group of academic presidents and chancellors — namely, the NCAA’s Executive Committee — deemed to be in violation of the policy and another 14 schools that were deemed okay.

This is all the more troubling since at least one nickname, the “Braves,” appears on both the “approved” and “unapproved” lists.  Apparently, the Executive Committee believes that it is “hostile and offensive” for fans to cheer on the “Braves” at Alcorn State, Bradley University and Chowan College, but not at Husson College, the State University of West Georgia, and the University of North Carolina-Pembroke.

The policy also directly conflicts with the specific wishes of some Indian tribes, themselves.  For instance, the Tribal Council of the Seminole Tribe of Florida voted unanimously in June to grant Florida State permission to use the Seminoles nickname and Chief Osceola as the school’s mascot.

That’s why Max Osceola, a member of the Tribal Council, lamented the NCAA’s new “anti-Indian” policy.  “We are repeating history,” he said.  “Non-Indians are telling Indians what is good for them.”

Indeed, the NCAA policy doesn’t even do that well.  According to NCAA President Myles Brand, the reason fans of the University of North Carolina-Pembroke can continue to support their “Braves” is that more of Pembroke’s student body (greater than 20 percent) is made up of American Indians than at the 18 “hostile and offensive” schools.  But if that’s true, then there are also a lot more students at Pembroke who could be personally offended then at the 18 schools that make up the NCAA’s Indian blacklist.  In other words, if the NCAA wants to ensure American Indian students don’t hear “hostile and offensive” nicknames or see “hostile and offensive” mascots at collegiate athletic events, then its policy targets the wrong schools — the campuses with the fewest American Indian students.

Thus, the NCAA’s new policy is nothing more than the latest attempt by America’s academic elite to impose their politically correct and culturally sensitive world view on the rest of us — this time through collegiate athletics.  Their team of ivory tower brainwashers has already won far too many of these battles so I hope the Seminoles are as dominant in the courtroom as they have been on the football field.

Reid Alan Cox is the General Counsel of the Center for Individual Freedom.