NCAA rules against Illinois in its campaign to ban Indian mascots

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The University of Illinois' use of Chief Illiniwek remains a "hostile and abusive" image of American Indians and will keep the university on its list of schools that will be prohibited from hosting NCAA postseason events after February, the NCAA declared Friday.

"The NCAA staff review committee found no new information relative to the mascot known as Chief Illiniwek or the logo mark used by some athletics teams that depicts a Native American in feathered headdress, to remove the university from the list," said Bernard Franklin, the NCAA's senior vice president for governance and membership.

School spokesman Tom Hardy says the university will look at the action more closely before determining how it will proceed. The university can appeal to the NCAA executive committee.

Chief Illiniwek is a student dressed in buckskins and headdress who dances at halftimes of home football, basketball and volleyball games. The tradition began in 1926.

The NCAA's decision on American Indian mascots, issued Aug. 5, bars universities on its list of schools deemed to use hostile imagery from hosting postseason championship events and requires those schools to remove any offensive nickname or logo from team, cheerleader and band uniforms when participating in postseason tournaments.

The NCAA will allow Illinois to keep its "Illini" and "Fighting Illini" nicknames. The university said in its appeal that those nicknames were derived from the name of the state.

"We're gratified that the NCAA agreed with the university's points about Illini and Fighting Illini having nothing to do with Native American imagery as used by the university," Hardy said. "I'm sure that will be comforting to the students and hundreds of thousands of alumni who are proud to call themselves Illini."