EMU Students: Remove Discriminatory Hurons Logo

Three years ago, Eastern Michigan University returned historic Normalites and Hurons logos to band uniforms. They’re hidden under a flap and aren’t visible, but members of the Native American Students Organization want them removed. (Photo via Pinterest)

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Native American students at Eastern Michigan University handed the school’s president a seam ripper during a Board of Regents meeting Tuesday, along with a simple message about how it should be used:

Rip the Hurons logos depicting an Indian with a painted face and two feathers from the school’s marching band uniforms, the Detroit Free Press reports.

EMU bowed to pressure from the Michigan Civil Rights commission and Native Americans and removed the logo in 1991, when it also changed its mascot from the Hurons to the Eagles.

But the logo was resurrected three years ago on band uniforms, along with a logo used when the Ypsilanti-based school’s band was formed in 1894. That logo features the letter “M” for Michigan, inscribed with the word “Normal“ for Normalites, the school’s nickname at the time.

In a statement three years ago, EMU said that both logos are hidden under a flap on the front of the uniforms and are not visible during public performances. The school said it had no plans to add the Hurons and Normalites logos to any other school uniforms.

“We proudly remain the Eastern Michigan University Eagles,” the school said, but explained they were reintroduced on the band uniforms to represent “both eras of the band’s history.”

Student: Wrong Message to Future Generations

Native American students told the regents the Hurons image sends the wrong message.

“While Eastern was one of the first to remove its logo, it is the only university to bring it back,” said Chris Sutton, a senior and treasurer of the school’s Native American Student Association. “You’re teaching future generations this kind of behavior is not only OK, it’s encouraged. You need to remove the logo immediately.”

EMU President Susan Martin, who is stepping down next month, said the decision to return the Hurons logo to the uniforms was an attempt to unite a campus community still divided over the original decision to jettison it, The Detroit News reports. Martin said alumni were so upset by the decision that many refused to financially support the university.

“It will always be a controversial issue,” Martin said during Tuesday’s meeting. “We’re trying to embrace everyone. ... The Huron is a part of our history.”

“Either Shut Up or Get Out”

Members of the NASO rallying outside Welch Hall during the Board of Regents meeting burned sage, played drums and spoke out against what they said amounts to disrespect for their culture and ancestors.

“The issue with the logo isn’t just a native problem, it’s everybody’s problem,” Sutton said at the rally. “When you perpetuate the idea that native people are less than human, it causes violence in a community.”

Tell Us:

• Do you think Eastern University Michigan should remove the Hurons logo, hidden beneath a flap on band uniforms?

Former band member Amber Morseau, a freshman when the Hurons image was returned to the band uniforms and now president of the EMU Native American Student Organization, said she quit the color guard over the issue.

A member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Nation, she said she tried to talk to the band leader and other members of the band about her objection to the logo, but got nowhere.

“Despite my many attempts at educating people why this was wrong, they didn’t care because they wanted new uniforms,” Morseau said. “Many people told me, ‘You can either get over it, or you can quit the band.’ That was the message everyone gave me – either shut up or get out.”

Morseau said she has met several times with Martin in an attempt to resolve the issue peacefully without legal action, but isn’t she optimistic the university will budge.

ACLU Seeks Records

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan agrees and has sent a letter to Martin noting that some Native American students believe there is a connection between the Hurons logo’s reappearance and hostilities they’ve experienced on campus.

The civil rights group has also filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all records related to the university’s resurrection of the Hurons logo.

“We’d like to know what influenced this bad decision,” Mark Fancher, staff attorney for ACLU-Michigan’s Racial Justice Project, said in a statement. “A modern public university should be no place for backwards thinking or dehumanizing symbolism. Indigenous peoples are not mascots, and EMU should stay out of the business of trafficking in their degradation.”

DOJ Talking with University President

In April, Native American elder Nathan Phillips was verbally assaulted after he approached a party of students who had painted their faces red and were wearing feathered headpiece,

The students saw Phillips and waved him over to talk.

“We are Hurons and we are doing a ceremony to impregnate women,” one of the students said, according to Native News Online.

Phillips said that when tried to talk to him about respecting others’ cultural heritage, they allegedly retaliated and hurled beer cans and angry words.

“This isn’t honoring us, this is racist,” he reportedly said, according to WXYZ-TV. “And as soon as I said ‘racist,’ it turned from honoring the Indians to, ‘Go back to the reservation, you F-ing Indian, get the F out of here.’”

That incident and others garnered the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, which has been meeting with Martin, the university president, and Native American students to resolve the concerns.

EMU spokesman Geoff Larcom told the Free Press the university takes the students concerns “very seriously” and is committed to “maintaining and improving Eastern as a diverse and welcoming campus.”