'Rebel' without a cause

As Dart­mouth con­tin­ues to have minor flare-ups over its con­tro­ver­sial for­mer In­dian mas­cot ("Mas­cot With­out Mal­ice," Oct. 11), at least one uni­ver­sity with sim­i­lar prob­lems has set­tled the issue. The Uni­ver­sity of Mis­sis­sippi an­nounced Thurs­day that "Colonel Reb" -- its an­te­bel­lum, South-will-rise-again-style mil­i­tary mas­cot -- would be re­placed by a black bear.

The "Rebel Black Bear" won out over the likes of the "Rebel Land Shark" and "Hotty Toddy" -- odd choices, but still more con­crete than the color green -- in a poll of alumni, stu­dents, fac­ulty, staff and sea­son ticket hold­ers.

The Colonel, who has served as Ole Miss's mas­cot since 1979, was side­lined seven years ago due to con­cerns over his Con­fed­er­ate af­fil­i­a­tions and out of sen­si­tiv­ity to the African-Amer­i­can com­mu­nity -- which makes up 14 per­cent of the Uni­ver­sity's stu­dent body.

The move is part of the Uni­ver­sity's at­tempt to dis­tance it­self from sym­bols of the Con­fed­er­acy -- which in­cluded last year's ban­ning of the foot­ball team's un­of­fi­cial fight song, "Dixie," when stu­dents began singing "the South will rise again" in the coda. This sum­mer, the Uni­ver­sity pro­hib­ited the sale of any items bear­ing Colonel Reb's image.

The choice of the Bear was not un­con­tro­ver­sial, of course: the mas­cot was al­legedly based on Faulkner's short story "The Bear," which ends with the an­i­mal, well, dying. Not an en­cour­ag­ing em­blem for your foot­ball team. Oth­ers don't find the Colonel of­fen­sive to mi­nori­ties and are work­ing to en­sure his re­turn.

Still, alumni as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Charles Clark told CNN he hopes the school can rally around the new mas­cot.

"I know that my love of Ole Miss is as strong as ever," Clark said. "I will be in Tuscaloosa on Sat­ur­day night cheer­ing loudly for our Rebels."