A judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to stop a plan to retire the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux nickname and related symbols.

State District Judge Michael Sturdevant dismissed the lawsuit brought by eight individual members of the Spirit Lake Tribe, who asked that the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education be prevented from changing the nickname before November 2010.

The ruling, subject to appeal, is the latest in a series of developments since the state board decided May 14 to retire the nickname and logo unless two tribal groups in the state agreed by October 1 to approve the use of the “Sioux” namesake for at least 30 years.

Spirit Lake members voted in April to grant permission, and the group’s tribal council approved a resolution in September supporting “perpetual” use.

The other group, the Standing Rock Tribe, elected new leadership in late September, and the board extended its deadline to November 30 to give that tribe additional time to consider the question. However, the group’s new chair said October 30 that while the tribe would be willing to discuss an agreement to grant permission, it would do so without “deadlines and other stipulations.”

In early November, the eight individual members of the Spirit Lake tribe won a temporary injunction from the North Dakota district court preventing the board of education from retiring the nickname and logo. The tribal members, noting that the board’s settlement of its 2006 lawsuit against the NCAA gives it until November 30, 2010, to obtain approval for the nickname and logo, said that the board of education should not be permitted to act before then.

The state’s attorney general responded November 20 by asking the court to dismiss the case, asserting that the eight tribal members do not have legal standing, and the injunction is an unconstitutional infringement of the board’s authority.

Those arguments were heard during a December 9 hearing and led to dismissal of the lawsuit December 18.

Under terms of the settlement between the board and the NCAA, the university has until August 15, 2011, to adopt a new name and logo if the tribes do not grant approval by the November 2010 deadline. The board decided in May that it would retire the current name and related imagery by October 1, 2010, unless it received tribal approval.

University President Robert O. Kelley said then that if the tribes did not grant approval, he would “call on all members of the university community – both on and off campus – to work with me, administrators, faculty, staff and students, to create new traditions based on our continued and shared vision of academic and athletic excellence and success.”