Trustees retire Chief Illiniwek by vote

~ The name Fighting Illini will remain with the school's teams.

URBANA, Ill. -- Less than a month after his last dance, University of Illinois trustees voted Tuesday to retire Chief Illiniwek's name, image and regalia, too.

The details of how and when the chief will disappear will be left to Chancellor Richard Hermann, a process he said should take six months to a year.

The name Fighting Illini, however, will survive and continue to be attached to the school's sports teams.

Activists and some American Indians have long complained that the chief is offensive and demeaning, while backers defend him as an honorable tradition.

The school decided in February to end the performances of the chief, leading the NCAA to lift sanctions that had barred Illinois from hosting postseason sports since 2005. The NCAA had deemed Illiniwek -- portrayed since 1926 by buckskin-clad students who danced at home football and basketball games and other athletic events -- an offensive use of American Indian imagery.

Trustee David Dorris offered the only dissent Tuesday among the 10 voting members.

"When you look at Chief Illiniwek and you see hate, shamefulness and embarrassment, perhaps you should sit down and consider where those feelings come from," he said before the vote.

Board chairman Lawrence Eppley voted for the resolution, but said he agreed with Dorris' assessment that the chief had been an honorable tradition for many years.

"Certainly my vote is not intended to dishonor anybody's memories, or to deny the fact that it's been a great tradition," Eppley said.

Herman also will decide how to make sure university maintains control of the trademarked Chief Illiniwek image.

The school made $1.8 million in the fiscal year ended last June on licenses granted to reproduce all its logos, including the chief. Details were not immediately available, but a substantial portion came from chief-related licensing, university officials have said.

Before deciding the future of the regalia, Herman said he would discuss the options with various people, including students who have portrayed the chief and the Oglala Sioux tribe. A member of the tribe, Frank Fools Crow, made the regalia and then sold it to the university in 1982. Some tribe members recently asked for its return.

Current chief Dan Maloney, who was at Tuesday's meeting, said he has the regalia for now.

The board also took the unusual step of ratifying the February decision. The earlier decision came without a vote from the board, which Eppley has said wasn't needed. Nonetheless, board spokesman Thomas Hardy said voting now could blunt any legal action claiming there should have been a vote.

"This certainly would count as formal action by the board," Hardy said.

A state lawmaker has asked the Attorney General's office whether making the decision without a vote was legal.

Board members also voted down Dorris' resolution that would have directed the university to join a lawsuit filed by Maloney and Logan Ponce, the other student who this year portrayed the chief. The suit asks a judge to determine whether the NCAA could sanction Illinois over the mascot.

In a heated exchange with Dorris, board member Robert Sperling said his resolution would only postpone the inevitable.

"The time has come," he said. "It [the chief] bothered a whole lot of people for a long time."

Graduate student Genevieve Tenoso, who said she is a Lakota Sioux, told the board before the vote that by not doing away with the chief sooner they helped create an atmosphere in which she sometimes didn't feel safe on campus.

"I haven't had one single day on this campus when something didn't remind of the Indian you prefer me to be rather than the living, breathing native person that I am," she said.