Do Indians make good mascots?

With the Cleveland Indians continuing to make mincemeat of the Red Sox, Vernon Bellecourt, "an Ojibwa Indian who waged a long campaign for native rights," as the Times puts it today, has died at age 75.

While Cleveland is a venerable presence in the American League, the naming of sports teams for Indians, or more specifically, the use of cartoonish mascots, is such a long tradition that we are mostly inured to it. Yet could you imagine professional or college sports using another racial or ethnic group for such a purpose?

He was arrested twice for burning an effigy of the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, Chief Wahoo, and protested the Washington Redskins at the Super Bowl.

Mr. Bellecourt said Indian nicknames for sports teams perpetuated stereotypes, making it easier to forget the real identities, problems and demands of Native Americans.

The argument gained traction. In 2001, the United States Commission on Civil Rights criticized the use of Indian images and nicknames by non-Indian schools, calling them “insensitive in light of the long history of forced assimilation that American Indian people have endured in this country.”

With many other forces in play, how much Mr. Bellecourt’s campaign has influenced colleges and universities to abandon Indian mascots is hard to gauge. But in recent years, more than a half dozen have done so, including the University of Illinois this year. In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association barred Indian mascots during postseason tournaments. A few newspapers have quit using Indian-related nicknames.

Professional sports teams have been more resistant, although Mr. Bellecourt applauded in 1996 when Syracuse’s Class AAA baseball team became the Skychiefs after 62 years of being the Chiefs. What Bellecourt called his “big four” targets — the Washington Redskins, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves — have not budged.