Much like the Chief is a symbol for the University, the controversy surrounding his image has come to represent the administration’s inability to act unless their hand is forced by a third party. Now that it has been forced, the time has come for closure.

No matter where any of us fall on the debate, Chief Illiniwek as we know him is all but dead. As such, we see no compelling reason to put the issue off any longer. With each passing day, the distraction grows larger and the problem more serious.

The Oglala Sioux tribe’s recent request that the University return the regalia undermines the validity of the pro-Chief argument. If the University were to refuse the request, pro-Chief advocates could no longer claim that the Chief honors the American Indian tradition. If the University were to acquiesce, then the Chief would truly become a white man made up like an Indian.

Chief Illiniwek symbolized the honor and integrity of the school for more than 80 years. He has represented the academic and athletic achievement of the University, performing at football, basketball and volleyball games in buckskin regalia adorned with a headdress.

The current portrayal of the Chief began with Gary Smith, former director of the Marching Illini, who purchased the regalia in 1982 for $3,500 from Frank Fools Crow, an Oglala Sioux tribe member. The regalia included moccasins, a tunic, breastplate, leggings, peace pipe pouch and a war bonnet adorned with eagle feathers. Last Wednesday, the tribe’s five-member executive committee adopted a resolution by a 3-0 vote demanding the University return the feathers and regalia. Despite the confusion about the exact whereabouts of the various pieces of the Chief’s dress, the important fact remains that the Oglala Sioux Tribe, with whom the Chief has been closely linked, has demanded that the University cease their use of Chief Illiniwek.

The University has become a popular target over the issue of American Indian representation ever since the NCAA handed down a ruling last year prohibiting the University from hosting postseason events as long as it continues using the Chief, calling it a “hostile and abusive” mascot. The regalia incident also comes on the heels of embarrassing student statements encouraging violence and intolerance on a pro-Chief Facebook group.

These embarrassing incidents are a direct result of the University administration’s refusal to make a decision on the Chief, even as tensions escalated. These tensions are not limited to the campus community. Alumni and other concerned parties have waged this debate far outside the area between Lincoln and Neal. Those outside this community are largely responsible for framing the argument as simply pro- or anti-Chief. The absence of leadership at the highest levels of this school’s governing body has allowed the factions at the extreme ends of the issue to dominate the public discourse.

The University didn’t take advantage of its students, who represented the entire spectrum of the debate. Numbering more than 40,000, the students were the best chance the University had to find an acceptable compromise. The University failed the students and community by allowing this largely symbolic argument to overshadow actual pressing issues.

The situation should have been handled once and for all after the NCAA penalized the University in August 2005.

The University Board of Trustees has promised a decision will be made this year. But for the silent majority, those who are not committed to either side of the debate but desperately seek resolution, the wait has already been too long. Instead of retiring the Chief long ago in a respectful manner when it had the chance, the Board has allowed the issue to fester, the rift to widen and its credibility to rot.

The next meeting of the University Board of Trustees will be held on March 13 at 9 a.m. in Urbana. The time for a respectable solution has long since passed, and the only way the University can move forward is to put Chief Illiniwek out of his misery.