Three and half years after forcing the College to dispose of a logo deemed “hostile and abusive” to Native Americans, the NCAA has continued to display that symbol on its website.
In May 2006, the organization ordered William and Mary to remove two feathers from its logo on the basis that the marker demeaned Native Americans. Threatened with NCAA sanctions, including the loss of the ability to host postseason events, the College complied after losing an appeal, introducing a new logo on Dec. 6, 2007.
However, over two years after that unveiling, the NCAA had yet to retract the old logo from its website.
As recently as Jan. 25, the main page for William and Mary on NCAA.com showed the old logo as its primary symbol for the Tribe. The websites for ESPN (ESPN.com) and Sports Illustrated (CNNSI.com) did so as well.
Screenshots taken on Jan. 12
When pressed for comment by The Flat Hat, NCAA spokesman Chuck Wynne said that the logos were used in error.
“The William & Mary logo was displayed by mistake and has been corrected,” Wynne said. “Once you made us aware of the problem, we immediately contacted our site content managers and had it fixed. Apparently, a glitch inadvertently replaced the new logo at some point in time with the old logo.”
He went on to reveal that the NCAA had contacted ESPN and Sports Illustrated to fix their websites as well. As of Jan. 26, ESPN.com was displaying the current logo, while CNNSI.com still displayed the previous design. Both sites did not respond to requests for comment.
Wynne dodged questions of whether the NCAA was complicit in being “hostile and abusive” towards Native Americans.
Images taken on Jan. 26
