The war of words between the University of North Dakota and Dartmouth College has escalated with a letter sent by North Dakota’s president, Charles E. Kupchella, to Dartmouth’s president, James Wright. In the letter, Mr. Kupchella calls a Dartmouth official’s recent criticism of North Dakota’s nickname — the “Fighting Sioux” — both patronizing and ignorant.
In the letter, which was posted on Joe’s Dartblog, Mr. Kupchella expresses his “great displeasure and dismay at what has appeared to many here to have been an attempt by some at Dartmouth, especially your athletic director, to direct your problems onto the University of North Dakota.”
The Dartmouth athletics director, Jo Ann (Josie) Harper, publicly apologized in November for North Dakota’s inclusion in a hockey tournament to be played at Dartmouth this month. Although the tournament was set up two years ago, Ms. Harper said she regretted the team’s invitation because of what she thinks is an offensive, racially insensitive nickname.
Mr. Kupchella disagreed with Ms. Harper’s take on the nickname and, in the letter, noted that North Dakota enrolls three times as many American Indians as does Dartmouth.
“Your athletic director and perhaps others on your campus are possibly unaware that since the Sioux actually call themselves ‘Sioux,’ hardly anyone considers the term to be inherently derogatory or stereotypical,” Mr. Kupchella writes.
