The Spirit Lake Tribe is really the only organization in ND that is stll in favor of the name. They are the ones that organized a petiton drive so the whole state will vote on the nickname on June 12th. With that vote, the ND part of Standing Rock Sioux reservation will also have a chance to vote for the first time. Spirit Lake Sioux voted 67% to 33% in favor of the name a couple of years ago, and after that, their council became fully behind the nickname.
UND's Foundation is spending $250,000 on a campaign to kill the nickname. Spirit Lake has a few thousand in donations and a van in their campaign to keep the nickname. UND's President is good friends with Portland St's President and SDSU's President, all of whom were administrators together at Illinois . They are helping get rid of the nickname behind the scenes. Portland St's President helped UND'S president get the other Big Sky Presidents to vote to get Fullerton to write a nasty letter to UND that stated that the nickname could eventually cause UND to have so many scheduling issues outside they conference, that UND's athletic finances would be ruined and UND would no longer be a viable Big Sky conference member. (Four of 350 DI schools refuse to schedule UND: Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Dartmouth, plus SDSU for the next month, except for the multiple games that they signed for recently). Fullerton and UND President have never ever stated that if the name doesn't get changed that UND will get kicked out immediately , but the news media keeps repeating the lie that UND will get kicked out if the name isn't changed. UND's President and Fullerton allow misconceptions to linger uncorrected, that way, fans get scared into changing the name through the statewide vote. UND's President Kelley will owe Fullerton big time afer all Fullerton has done to help kill the nickname. Fullerton probably gets a huge raise as a personal favor, courtesy of Portland St and UND Presidents once the nickname is killed. There are issues with keeping the name, but not Big Sky membership. UND is contractually in the Big Sky and can not be kicked out unless it violates a Big Sky bylaw and all ten of the other schools vote to boot UND. Having an Indian nickname is not a violation of Big Sky bylaws.
The Spirit Lake Sioux sued the NCAA for discrimination, because for every other school only one tribe was required. The court threw out the lawsuit, saying Spirit Lake didn't have a legal standing to sue on an agreemnt between UND and the NCAA.
The Sioux are being screwed by the white man again, this time its pinheaded college administrators who together all worked behind the scenes at Illinois to kill off Chief Illininek. Of course it's fine to deceive the public in the eyes of college administrators, because they are so much more intelligent and moral creatures than us low lifes. Killing off the scourge of Indian nicknames is so vital to society because it will usher in a whole new age of peace, but truth has to be damned for their type of peace to happen.
BTW,the official name of both tribes includes the word Sioux. Standing Rock Sioux tribe is in Sioux County, which is run by Sioux people. Every H.S. on Sioux reservations have Indian nicknames, including the name Sioux. Dakota / Lakota is what they call themselves. Sioux is how they chose to have others call them as a group. Standing Rock even had a vote to remove the name Sioux from the tribal name and change it to Oyate. That vote failed. When Standing Rock people are allowed to vote affirming the Sioux nickname, it will pass. The NCAA wouldbe total hypocrites to then reject two tribal votes affirming the name.