Is anybody else surprised by the News-Gazoo's banner waving for Chief Illiniwek, such to the point that they'll trumpet out anything and call it fact?

There are over 40,000 students at the U of I. Less than 10,000 of those participated in the election, and of those 10,000, about 8000 voted for the chief, a little over 2000 voted against the Chief, and the over 30,000 rest of them didn't even bother to click a link that was emailed to them.

This doesn't say the students want the Chief back, it says that less than 20% of them want the Chief back, about 4% want him to stay gone, and the overwhelming majority of the student body not only doesn't see the Chief as something worth fighting for or against, they'd rather focus on what the University is actually about: Academics, not dancing white guys who honor a group that doesn't wish to be honored.

Funny how those who actually have a stake in the University (the students, not the alumni or the thousands of people who never attended classes on campus, but somehow feel "connected" to the school) find this to be such a minor issue that they didn't even bother to vote on it. When the students were asked 4 years ago should the Chief be retired, 66% of those who voted said yes, 33% voted no, and the other 70% of the student body didn't really care. That was a victory for the pro-Chief side to be sure, because it said that 70% of the student body either wanted to keep the Chief or didn't feel like rocking the boat. Now that the status quo is keep the Chief retired, 75% of the student body not caring enough to vote says that they are content enough with the status quo. That's not a victory for the Pro-Chief side, it's a stunning defeat of something that died when the board pulled the plug.

Of course, the News-Gazette doesn't bother to point out that over 75% of the student body doesn't agree with them. Had the vote gone the other way, the blindly Pro-Chief NG would have been pointing this out here instead of me. Maybe their crack team of journalists would benefit from taking a basic stats class at the Univerisity?

Posted by on March 4, 2008 at 8:52 AM Suggest Removal

The author of this article is clearly confused at not only the referendum process but the power of a student vote.

The VCSA has the right to completely remove referendums from the ballot. Seeing as she worked with the authors of the referendum to make it acceptable, its hardly underhanded.

Students don't understand that passing a referendum could mean absolutely nothing. Rather than a referendum this should have been called a poll and treated as such. Though is it really surprising that the campus likes the chief?

Posted by on March 4, 2008 at 2:55 PM Suggest Removal