Newberry College to host lecture amid mascot feud

Beneath the surface of today’s public lecture on American Indians at Newberry College will be the conflict over the NCAA’s ruling that American Indian mascots are offensive — and the broader question whether all schools statewide should eliminate Indian mascots.

In August, the NCAA banned schools with American Indian nicknames from participating in postseason events. Newberry College, with its nickname of the Indians, lost an appeal from the NCAA in October. Newberry president Mitchell Zais has called the ruling “unjust, coercive and perhaps illegal,” and is refusing to budge on the issue.

Today’s presentation at the college is one of several programs scheduled throughout the year, more to highlight American Indian culture than provide an open forum on mascots, Newberry spokeswoman Cayci Banks said.

“Our Multicultural Heritage Committee thought that students should be exposed to other cultures. That is the main point of the program,” Banks said. “We stand by our position as articulated by our appeal to the NCAA.”

November is National American Indian Heritage Month. Among the program’s speakers will be Keith Pounds, one of the most outspoken critics of Indian mascots, and Will Goins, CEO of the Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois and United tribes of South Carolina.

Two years ago, Pounds, who affiliates with the Chocktaw tribe, started the South Carolina Indian Mascot Project to push the elimination of Indian nicknames in state schools.

“Schools in South Carolina don’t seem to be taking it seriously,” Pounds said of his efforts. “It’s been a tough fight.”

American Indian mascots, Pounds argues, “don’t represent Indian people as they are today.”

Activists have compared depictions of Indian nicknames to blackface actors in minstrel shows popular in the early 20th century.

“I think that it’s an interesting and continued challenge, only because it seems so simple to me,” Goins said. “We would not allow this to happen to any other ethnic group. We would not allow people to dress up in blackface on the sidelines for a team that is called the N-word.”

Both Goins and Pounds see education as key to ridding the state of Indian mascots.

“That’s the best way to begin the dialogue,” Goins said. “We don’t go where we’re not invited, so it isn’t as though we’re going on campus, throwing around propaganda or passing out leaflets.”

While Newberry officials have fought a nickname change vehemently, it remains to be seen whether state high schools would offer similar opposition.

Pounds claims that caricatures of American Indians make up the most popular mascot in South Carolina, but only a small percentage of the state’s more than 200 public and private high schools have mascots related to Indians.

Officials at the S.C. High School League, which oversees all state high school athletics, have remained silent on the matter.

“We don’t have a position either way,” said Jerome Singleton, the league’s executive director.

Goins said he hopes to use today’s presentation to reach out to a Newberry College still sore about the NCAA mascot ruling.

“They really do have to address this issue, and they have to do it in an informed manner,” he said. “Our effort is to help them be informed.”