A bow to Political Correctness

Why should the following article not surprise me? After all political correctness is running amuk in academia. Read this for another example.

NCAA bans Indian mascots, nicknames from postseason events
Associated Press Posted August 5 2005, 1:31 PM EDT

INDIANAPOLIS -- The NCAA banned the use of American Indian mascots by sports teams during its postseason tournaments, but will not prohibit them otherwise.

The NCAA's executive committee decided this week the organization did not have the authority to bar Indian mascots by individual schools, committee chairman Walter Harrison said Friday.

Nicknames or mascots deemed ``hostile or abusive'' would not be allowed by teams on their uniforms or other clothing beginning with any NCAA tournament after Feb. 1, said Harrison, the University of Hartford's president.

``What each institution decides to do is really its own business'' outside NCAA championship events, he said.At least 18 schools have mascots the NCAA would deem ``hostile or abusive,'' including Florida State's Seminole and Illinois' Illini. The full list of schools was not immediately released.

How the terms Fighting Illini or Seminole is abusive I don't know. I'd propose that few people would even know Illini is even a inidan tribe outside of Illinois or Seminole outside of Florida and Oklahoma. So aren't they also in a way keeping this history alive? Nothing about political correctness makes sense to me.