In the wake of the societal movement forcing institutions across the United States to address their racist histories, Grinnell alumnus John Aerni-Flessner `01 has submitted a petition to the Grinnell College administration requesting that they remove the Grinnell Athletics nickname, “the Pioneers.” As of Sept. 1, the petition had 749 signatures, from students, alumni and staff.
The petition asks that the name be changed to something more suitable for a college that tends to associate itself with social justice, arguing that the word “Pioneers” is implicitly celebrating Western settlement on Indigenous people’s land and concurrent acts of genocide.
“The connections between pioneers and settlers’ colonialism are ones people are going to make, no matter what the publicity does,” Aerni-Flessner said. “When the sports wires go out and the [Midwest] Conference information goes out, it’s [Grinnell College] identified as ‘The Pioneers.’ The external community is seeing it as the face of the institution.”
Student Government Association (SGA) President Lana Katai ’21 distributed the petition to students via an all-campus email.
The connections between pioneers and settlers’ colonialism are ones people are going to make, no matter what the publicity does. – John Aerni-Flessner ’01.
On the Pioneer name, Katai said, “It’s only talked about within athletics, but that’s still a part of the student body that people have to engage with.” Katai is a student athlete herself. Eight of the petitioners are members of the Grinnell College Athletic Hall of Fame (Aerni-Flessner is one of them).
Katai sees the name change as the start of a new avenue of discussion opening at Grinnell this year. “There’s never been a reaction not only to the names of our teams but what it means to be at a liberal arts college, and what it means to have all these all white male teams,” she said.
As of now, there is no prominent alternate for the nickname, but the Aug. 20 email from SGA includes a form that is open for students to suggest ideas.
There’s never been a reaction not only to the names of our teams but what it means to be at a liberal arts college, and what it means to have all these all white male teams. – Lana Katai ’21
The most frequently mentioned name on the suggestion form is “Squirrels,” reflecting the College’s non-athletic mascot, Scarlet the Squirrel. Other suggestions range from “Visionaries” to “Prairie Dogs.” One student who responded to the survey questioned the necessity of having a new nickname to replace the Pioneers at all.
Four respondents further observed that the Honor G symbol, also affiliated with Grinnell Athletics, resembles the Nazi Iron Cross and asked for the Administration to consider the symbol’s significance and impact in addition to that of the Pioneer name.
In response to the petition, President Anne Harris said the College is prepared to engage in discussion about the nickname.
“The leadership team is also actively interested in this issue, and we are mobilizing to organize a process that engages the matter of the College’s athletic nickname,” Harris wrote in a Sept. 3 email sent to Aerni-Flessner, College and SGA administrators and The S&B.