The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign removed the Chief as its mascot due to racial concerns

Question

I cannot find one concrete answer on why the Chief isn't our mascot anymore. The most information I can find has to do with racial stereotyping, but there are also mentions of abusive and hostile symbols that the Chief represented.

Answer 1

This is true due to the outrage of Native American groups and advocates, the reasoning behind not using the chief as the mascot at the University of Illinois is primarily due to racist and perpetuating stereotypes and the University's goal to move forward. While some say that it is disrespectful to have Native Americans as mascots for a variety of teams, others also argue that it is honorable and paying respect to the Native Americans, which makes this topic extremely controversial.

Within the article I found from the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/us/native-americans-sports-mascots-illinois.html, they discuss how similarly, many teams (nationally) were changing their uniforms and mascots to appease to current times. Administrator, Lisa Miller stated that "'It's difficult for a University to have a mascot that you can't 100 percent embrace'". Going off of that, much controversy has also sparked in that if the "Fighting Illini" had changed to a new mascot, rather than an orange "I", the issue could have been more moveable and forgotten about by now.

Answer 2

According to will.illinois.edu, "Several more years passed until the NCAA ruled in 2006 that certain Native American-based college mascots and symbols were "hostile and abusive" to minorities." As much as it was Illinois' decision to retire Chief, the NCAA was the one who first came to the conclusion that Native-American based mascots should not be used. That's the only information I was really able to find but I think it was a conclusion made by not just the NCAA but many different organizations including UIUC.

https://will.illinois.edu/chief-illiniwek-understanding-the-issues

Answer 3

This is true. The university stated that NCAA passed that some college mascots were insensitive and hostile to minorities. With the sanctions passed two post-athletic events were canceled because of the use of the mascot. With the threat of more athletic events being cancelled, UIUC changed the mascot to the fighting illini.

https://will.illinois.edu/chief-illiniwek-understanding-the-issues/