Trustee Damage Control

An e-mail from Public Affairs at Marquette

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Board of Trustees chair to hold forum on athletics nickname Saturday (tomorrow) morning

In response to student concerns regarding Marquette’s new athletics nickname, MUSG will sponsor an open forum with John F. Bergstrom, chair of the Board of Trustees, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday (tomorrow) in AMU, 227. Students, faculty and staff are invited to attend.

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We may or may not be able to make this, but we do have our list of questions that Bergstrom needs to answer:

• Why did you accept the claim of a small band of tribal leaders that the Warriors nickname demeaned Indians, and ignore national surveys of Indians and tribes like the Seminoles
• Was the decision really made at Wednesday’s meeting? If so, why did the University have the insignia and web page puffing “Gold” so quickly?
• Why did you allow a survey that failed to ask respondents whether they preferred Warriors or Golden Eagles? If it was done without the approval of the Board, did anybody on the Board complain?
• What decision rule applied to the vote? Did a change to Warriors require a majority of the Jesuit vote?
• How in the world could a decision this unpopular be unanimous?
• Just who suggested “Gold?” Did it come from some Board member, or the Administration?
• Why wasn’t “Gold” test marketed, or tried on focus groups?

One very uncivil question that should not be asked is:

• Are you folks all complete idiots?

But that is the question that will be on everybody’s mind.