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MADISON, WISCONSIN - American Indian students, faculty, and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Madison Indian community members have organized a protest and educational teach-in on the continued use of Indian mascots by the University of Illinois whose men’s basketball team plays in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen this weekend in Madison. The Madison Indian community has deep concerns about the offensive caricatures of Native peoples in popular culture, particularly within the nation’s educational system.

This weekend's teach-in at 4:00 p.m. on Friday at the UW Multicultural Student Center in the Red Gym Armory and protest at 5:30pm near the Kohl Center will focus on efforts to get the University of Illinois to abandon its demeaning portraits of Indian peoples. Protest and teach-in organized by the Midwest Treaty Network and Wunk Sheek, UW-Madison Indian Student Group.

For more information contact, Ned Blackhawk, phone: 608-213-9037, e-mail: nedbhawk@hotmail.com or Aaron Bird Bear, phone: 608-217-3564, e-mail: abirdbear@facstaff.wisc.edu.

"Indians peoples are among the least understood minority groups in the United States and should not have their histories and cultures degraded to simplistic caricatures." Ada Deer, Director UW-Madison American Indian Studies Program, former Tribal Chair, Menominee Nation of Wisconsin.

"Ignorance and stereotypes only hinder efforts to bridge cultural and racial divides and should be challenged at every turn.” Gary Sandefur, Professor of Sociology, UW-Madison, former Interim Provost, UW-Madison.

"I find Indian mascots offensive to my culture and demeaning to my family’s struggles to overcome dispossession, poverty, and racism." Derek Jennings, member of the Quapaw Nation, graduate of Dartmouth College’s American Indian Studies Program.

"Mascots are like a slap in the face", Richard Loud Bear, member of the Menominee Nation.