Arguments not set in appeal of nickname decision

Attorneys representing the NCAA and Fighting Sioux nickname backers who sued the association could present oral arguments before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by mid-October, according to scheduling documents submitted to the court.

But a court date in December or even next year appears more likely.

The Spirit Lake Nation’s Committee for Understanding and Respect filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Nov. 1, 2011, alleging violations of contract law and federal civil rights laws.

District Judge Ralph Erickson dismissed the suit in May. The Spirit Lake committee and Archie Fool Bear, representing pro-nickname members of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, filed notice of appeal at the end of May.

In a written brief filed with the appeals court last month, the NCAA said the plaintiffs lack standing to sue, “however sincere (their) antipathy toward the NCAA,” and their appeal “is as procedurally improper as it is futile.”

Reed Soderstrom, a Minot attorney representing the Spirit Lake committee and Fool Bear, responded last week. The NCAA had not engaged the committee’s arguments, he wrote, “relying instead on a barrage of unmeritorious claims regarding pleading, standing and statutes of limitation.”

As in previous filings and arguments, Soderstrom and the committee rely heavily on a 1969 naming ceremony conducted at the University North Dakota by Sioux elders, the significance of which has been a matter of dispute.

Chuck Haga is a reporter

at the Grand Forks Herald, which is owned by Forum Communications Co.

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