Sioux Supporters of U. of North Dakota’s Embattled Logo Sue NCAA

A group of Sioux Indians who support the University of North Dakota’s use of the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in federal district court in Fargo, N.D., asserting that the association’s efforts to have the controversial logo retired by year’s end “violate Native American civil rights, equal-protection rights, and religious rights,” reports The Pioneer, a newspaper in Bemidji, Minn. The State Board of Higher Education, which voted in August to have the university remove the nickname by December 31, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the lawsuit would not affect that plan. State lawmakers, in a special session next week, are expected to repeal a bill that required the university to keep the nickname.