From racist cartoons to NCAA approval: A timeline of the Ute Indian Tribe’s relationship with the University of Utah

Editor’s note • This story was produced in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit news organization that supports local newsrooms in reporting on higher education, and the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship.

The University of Utah and the Ute Indian Tribe both point to 1972 for when their historic partnership started.

That’s when the U. first got the tribe’s permission to use the Utes’ name in athletics. And that’s when the tribe started getting directly involved in how that name and imagery would appear, including designing the feather logo.

But the years both before and after the inaugural agreement have their own interesting history. For decades before it, the U. at times displayed racist depictions of a Native mascot. And for decades after, the tribe has been pushing for the U. to support its children in having access to higher education.

There have been protests, threats of lawsuits, live “Indian” portrayals at football games, NCAA intervention and several new versions of the longstanding memorandum of understanding. Here’s a timeline of it all:

The early years

1892: The University of Utah launched its athletics programs 42 years after opening its doors as a school. At this point, according to a paper by researcher and former U. faculty member Larry Gerlach, the U.’s teams were referred to generically as “The Utahns” or “The Crimson.”

1927: The U. opened a new stadium and started to gain renown for its football team, as programs across the country grew in popularity after World War I. Feeling like it needed an identity to match that attention, the university started using the Utes name.

A dedication program, according to Gerlach’s research, for the 1927 homecoming game featured on its cover a Native American in a headdress riding into the stadium; and inside the publication were several illustrations of Indians. It included words to a new student cheer, “You—u—u—u Redskins, Fight! Fight! Fight!”

1929: The U.’s school yearbook, The Utonian, “solidified” the name, Gerlach wrote. It noted, too, that two bronze plaques of Indian chiefs had been added to the entrance of the football stadium. And it included several photos and stories about the Utes. The Northern Utes — the tribe in the state most tied to the name — had not been asked about the use of their name.

1947: Quentin Kolb graduated from the U.; he is believed to be the first Ute — and first Native American student, generally — to get a degree there, according to tribal leader Forrest Cuch. Kolb had attended a federal Indian boarding school in Whiterocks for the Utes, and blamed its poor care of children for his brother’s death.

At the same time, students created a racist cartoon of an Indian boy to represent the teams as an unofficial mascot. They named him “Ho-Yo.” And he was featured prominently in publications and at school events. Fraternities and sororities each year decorated their houses before football games. “Ho-Yo” was featured in all of those, along with “Big Chief Alumni.”

1951: The first group of Ute students to attend the U. together enrolled. They were 11 freshmen from the tribe’s Uintah and Ouray Reservation in eastern Utah. The tribe paid for their tuition using reparations it received from stolen land. The university’s student newspaper, The Daily Utah Chronicle, published a story on the new undergraduates, saying the school’s mascot “will at last have some country cousins on campus.”

1957: Utah became one of the last states in the nation to remove its law barring Native Americans from voting.

1960: A University of Utah parade float included students dressed as Indians chasing a cowboy, who was tied to a stake. It included the tagline written on the side, “Hoyo burn ‘um Cowboys.” It was common at games for fans to be dressed in “war paint” and to wear headdresses.

Newspapers at the time, too, according to Gerlach, were using “Utes” and “Redskins,” “Injuns” and “scalping” in their game coverage of the university’s teams.

1970: A first-year law professor, George S. Grossman, spoke out against “extremely objectionable” depictions of American Indians in a newspaper advertisement for a new center on campus. He urged the U.’s president to drop the Native name for the school’s teams. The president declined, saying, “To change the name of our athletic squads would take a very great effort.”

But Grossman’s protest pushed the faculty advisory committee at the time to stop the campus bookstore from selling anything with comic characterizations of the Utes, including “Ho-Yo.”

That April, eight Native students at the U. also pushed back against the name as “degrading.” The athletics director then ordered that no more Indian artwork appear in sports programs. Later that year, in June, the university made the same decision to apply to all of campus, including any documents or publications.

The school’s administration decided, too, to consult the tribe for the first time about the name.

Ute leaders told the U. then that they did not like the caricatures depicting their people and were opposed to athletes wearing sacred items, such as headdresses. But overall, the tribe supported the use of the Utes name by the school and, as a sovereign nation, said that choice should be theirs to approve.

Approval from the tribe, retiring mascots

1972: The university and the Ute Tribe entered into their first agreement. The school promised to eliminate the use of “Redskins.”

1975: The U. adopted the circle and feather logo designed by Ute leader Lacee Harris. It represents the circle of life, a prominent and important symbol for the tribe, alongside eagle feathers.

1980: The university’s administration, wanting to increase “Ute pride,” had a Ute student in full headdress ride onto the field before games and launch a lance into a straw bale. It was the only time the unnamed rider appeared, Gerlach noted in his paper.

1985: After seeing Florida State University’s depiction of its mascot “Chief Osceola,” a Seminole, U. leaders created the “Crimson Warrior,” where a student would dress up as a Ute and ride onto the field on a horse named Qea-oontz. The Ute Tribe initially supported the idea. But the mascot quickly drew fire when there were no Ute students on campus at that time to fill the role. The first person to dress as the mascot was a Navajo student. After that, it was often a white student. Luke Duncan, then-tribal chairperson, warned the U. to drop the Crimson Warrior, saying, “If it gets worse, you’ll hear more from us.”

1991: With a peak of racist behavior in stadium crowds, the school distributed “Standards for Appropriate Fan Behavior” to encourage those at games not to wear red face paint or headdresses, and to stop doing a version of “the tomahawk chop.”

1993: The U. permanently retired the Crimson Warrior and considered abandoning the Utes mascot, according to an article from The Daily Utah Chronicle that is archived as part of “The Utes Nickname Project” pulled together by U. communication professor Danielle Endres.

1995: There were only three students attending the U. at this point who were Utes. Tribal leaders expressed significant frustration with the school for not doing more to support their students in exchange for using the tribe’s name. The then-education director for the tribe called for 10 tuition waivers for Ute students. The U. declined.

1996: The tribe had its attorneys send a letter to the school’s administration, demanding recompense for “decades of character-appropriation.” It upped its ask to 20 scholarships for its students, along with a public apology from university leadership.

Arthur K. Smith, president of the university at the time, refused. He said there would be no quid pro quo to use the name. “If the use of the Ute name offends you, no amount of money will change that. … This should not be seen as reparation or a conscience-salve,” he said at the time, as quoted by Gerlach.

The discussions ended at an impasse where only future meetings were promised.

And the university moved forward with “Swoop,” a red-tailed hawk, to be its new mascot. It generated “hysteria in fans,” according to an article then from The Daily Utah Chronicle.

The first written agreements

2003: The U. and the Ute Indian Tribe developed their first written document, solidifying their partnership. The memorandum of understanding, or MOU, gave the university permission to continue using the sovereign tribe’s name and imagery.

In return, the school was expected to support the Ute Tribe’s children in pursuing education. The stated goal was “to matriculate greater numbers of competent and experienced Ute Indian scientists, engineers, technicians and business professionals.” The document said the U. would also provide financial assistance for Utes students to attend the university, but it made no specific promises.

2005: The NCAA released a list of 18 colleges and universities across the country that had “hostile or abusive” Native mascots and needed to remove those to remain in good standing.

The Ute Tribe’s governing Business Committee agreed to write a letter to appeal, telling the NCAA it supported the U.’s use of its name. And because of that, the NCAA granted the U. permission to keep using Utes for athletics, along with four other schools.

Forrest Cuch, a former education director for the tribe, drew attention when he said that NCAA appeal, though, should come with “some financial consideration since the university benefited financially from the use of the Ute name.” After it submitted its letter, the tribe’s leaders said they were told by the U.’s administration that a donor had stepped up to provide scholarships for Ute students. And so the Business Committee thought those had been added in an update to the MOU, according to coverage by the Deseret News.

2006: The school didn’t offer any Ute-specific scholarships the following spring, though, and tribal leaders said they felt misled.

Marilyn Hetzel, then the Ute Tribe’s education director, was quoted by the Desert News saying: “It is time for the University of Utah, who uses that name, to provide more than a few lip service things here and there.” The U., however, denied ever promising money.

2011: Then-U. President David Pershing said the school was going to phase out using the circle and feather logo in favor of the Block U.

2013: The campus group Indigenous Students and Allies for Change — which was largely Native American but not Ute — launched a petition for the school to end its use of the Ute name and the circle and feather logo. The students said they had seen continued racist behavior at games and that having a Native mascot should be considered “denigration and mockery” to all American Indians, according to an article in The Salt Lake Tribune.

The Ute Tribal Alumni Association, made up of nine Ute graduates from the U., pushed back. They wrote in a letter to the school’s board of trustees that “to eliminate the drum and feather logo, and eventually the Ute name, thus our affiliation with the university, would be worse than disrespectful; it would be cruel.” At this point, one or two Ute students are attending the U.

Negotiations for scholarships, other support for the tribe

2014: The MOU is renewed. In a landmark move, after 30 years of pushing by the tribe, the U. agreed to provide scholarships for Ute students. The initial requirement was for two scholarships each year, up to $8,000, which was the rough price of tuition at the time.

The Utes also got a special adviser to the university president and the “Ute Proud” games were launched. Members of the tribe perform during the halftime show at a football and a basketball game every year and talk about their culture and appropriate fan behavior.

Pershing said, as quoted by The Tribune, “This isn’t about money; we need to be clear about that. This is about educational opportunity.”

Controversy had preceded the renewal of the agreement, including a U. official being accused of leaking a letter the tribe had sent to the school’s administration ahead of negotiations. That official then resigned, The Tribune reported.

2016: An addendum to the MOU took out the specific number of scholarships that the U. has to provide. That tribe hoped that would open it up for more awards to be given out. But it also meant the U. had no obligation to give out any at all.

The U. hired a liaison to work between the university and the tribe. The administrator is expected to help with K-12 efforts on the reservation and to support the tribe’s students in applying for college.

2020: The MOU got another update. This time, there was a requirement added to teach incoming freshmen and transfer students at the U. about the Ute Tribe’s history and culture during orientation.

The tribe also requested — and was approved — to get $100,000 per year from the U. that it could put toward supporting its K-12 students. Ute leaders said at the time they didn’t feel the university was doing enough, so they wanted to be able to directly hire mentors and tutors for their children. The goal of the agreement is updated, too, to say the U. is supposed to help increase college attendance of Ute kids.

2022: The Ute Tribe requested two addendums to MOU: 1) to expand scholarships to those who are not officially enrolled members of the tribe, and 2) to be able to provide a list of high school seniors to the U. that the school should be working with. The U. declined to add either of them to the agreement, according to current school spokesperson Rebecca Walsh.

The U. announced that it would, though, start providing a Native Student Scholarship for all students who are enrolled members of any of Utah’s sovereign tribes.

2023: The Tribune published a series of stories showing that Ute children fall last in the state in public schools for standardized test scores and graduation rates. Tribal leaders pointed to the legacy of the two boarding schools that once operated on the reservation and forced Ute kids into labor. They said those attitudes have carried into K-12 schools today and have stopped their students from succeeding.

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson promised to take action, but nothing came in the following legislative session — even as scores worsened.

What’s to come?

2024: The Utah Legislature passed a bill limiting diversity efforts in public higher education. The measure, HB261, initially threatened the scholarships for Native students at colleges across the state, including the U., before it was updated to protect those, as long as they weren’t paid out with state funding (most are not). It was signed by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox.

The new law only protected the current version of the MOU between the U. and the Ute Indian Tribe. That means future iterations — including the one currently being debated to go into effect in 2025 — are potentially limited by the parameters. The U. has said “the impact on future MOUs is ‘to be determined.’”

Ute Tribe Chairman Julius T. Murray III said he was frustrated by the state meddling in an agreement between the university and a sovereign nation. “We’re willing to fight if it comes to it,” he said.

In a major move, the Ute Tribe is also now considering changing its blood quantum, or the lineage required to be considered an enrolled member, to increase its population and the number of students who would qualify to attend the U. and receive the scholarship there. That change will go to a vote before the tribe’s members.