The debate over offensive American Indian mascots and team names first entered the public discourse in the early 1970s at colleges and universities around the country. In September 1993, the University of Wisconsin took action on the issue when the Faculty Senate adopted a policy prohibiting athletic competition with any nonconference school that used derogatory American Indian imagery.

At the time, UW's was one of the strictest policies within the National Collegiate Athletic Association and was widely praised as a model for progress regarding the matter.

In 2005, the NCAA enacted its own policy concerning the issue and has specifically outlined certain schools that are banned from hosting NCAA championship events because of their offensive nicknames. In the past two years, the NCAA has designated some schools as exempt from the policy because local tribes have endorsed the use of their names.

At UW, there has been occasional uncertainty about what schools and mascots specifically fall under the category of "offensive" and should therefore be avoided for competition — raising questions about whether the policy should be tweaked.

In this light, the Faculty Senate recently altered its stance regarding which schools UW should compete with by making eligible universities whose team names have been endorsed by their affiliate tribes. UW athletics will now be permitted to play such schools as the Florida State Seminoles and University of Utah Utes, for example.

Long has our university been at the forefront of this issue, and we are pleased to see the Faculty Senate hold firm in its noble ideology. At the same time, we are also glad to see UW adapt to refined situations, when a name was once considered derogatory but has since been deemed otherwise by those who would be most directly offended.