Order of Angell
The Order of Angell, known for decades as Michigamua, was a senior honorary society recognizing student leaders and outstanding athletes at the University of Michigan. For most of its history, its practices reflected images of Native Americans drawn from Euro-American popular culture. From Michigamua's founding in 1901 until the 1970s, membership was a badge of distinction. From the 1970s on, the society drew rising criticism for admitting only men; for the form of cultural appropriation known as "playing Indian;" and for possessing Native American artifacts.
By 1999, when women were first admitted, the organization had discarded many of its faux-Native American references and practices. But in 2000, protesters took over the group's headquarters and demanded its ouster from the campus. Soon afterward, Michigamua lost its official recognition and its meeting room. In 2006-07 it reorganized as the Order of Angell with a vow to foster diversity and draw its members from the broadest possible array of candidates. But critics continued to denounce the Order on the grounds of its secrecy, elitism, and origins in Michigamua. In February 2021, after several current and former BIPOC members of the organization urged that the Order of Angell be dissolved, the active members disbanded the society and declared that it should never be reconstituted.
History
Founding and early years
The founding of Michigamua in 1901 stemmed in part from a sharp rise in the number of students at Michigan, from some 1,500 in the 1880s to 4,500 by 1910. With the dilution of close relations between students and faculty, students sought community in organizations of their own, including fraternities and sororities, dramatic and musical societies, publications, and athletic teams. Honorary societies arose to recognize the leaders of these groups.In the academic year 1900-1901, 15 students in a philosophy course taught by Professor Robert Mark Wenley formed the Hot Air Club, a social group that soon declared itself a formal society of seniors that would take, as a founder put it, "an Indian tribe as the means of expression and the name Michigamua." Members believed "Michigamua" was the name of an actual indigenous tribe of the Great Lakes region and the state's namesake. There was no such tribe, though the state's name is indeed a variant of the Ojibwe word gichigami or michigami, meaning "large water".
The founders were inspired by novels featuring senior societies at Eastern colleges. The best known included three at Yale. Other such groups had emerged at Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, among others.
Members defined the group's mission as to "fight like hell for Michigan and Michigamua," which meant simply that Michigamua regarded itself as an embodiment of "school spirit", to use the expression then coming into vogue. As on other campuses, allegiance to one's university or college as a whole was promoted as a corrective to the rancorous loyalties to one's class or academic unit that often provoked rowdy and violent "rushes". Promoting school spirit also partook of the boosterism common to U.S. cities and towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Michigamua maintained its prestige and remained largely free of controversy through the 1960s. Several factors helped it to thrive in the long term. One was the practice of recruiting honorary "sachems" from among the university's administrators, prominent faculty and athletic directors, and coaches. These included members of the governing board of regents; four presidents of the university ; and the varsity football coaches Fielding H. Yost, Fritz Crisler and Bo Schembechler. Connections to the university's upper echelons helped to cement Michigamua's place in campus culture. Close contacts also were maintained with upper-level administrators, especially T. Hawley Tapping, head of the university's alumni association from the 1930s through the 1950s, and John Feldkamp, "sachem" of Michigamua in 1960-61 and director of the university's housing office from 1966 to 1977.
Michigamua's longevity also was supported by an alumni body, the "Old Braves Council," which was founded shortly after World War II. With so many male students in the armed forces, the group's wartime rosters dwindled. Then the campus was swamped with military veterans, older on average than students of pre-war years and less interested in undergraduate traditions. So Frederick C. Matthaei, a member of the university's governing board and an honorary sachem, worked with his son, Frederick C. Matthaei Jr., a member of the "tribe", to recruit a full complement of "fighting braves" for 1946-47 and to start a board of alumni to advise new members on traditions, plan alumni gatherings and raise money for the upkeep of the "wigwam".
Challenges and responses, 1970s-1999
In the 1970s, critics began to challenge Michigamua's privileged status. Women argued that the university's support violated federal rules against sex discrimination. Native Americans cited state and federal protections against racial bias. The complaints prompted Michigamua to make concessions that changed elements of the organization but preserved its recognition as a sanctioned student body through the 1990s.The earliest legal complaint came in 1972 from a chapter of American Indians Unlimited led by Victoria Barner, a Michigan graduate student and member of the Nisga'a tribe of British Columbia. Addressing the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, Barner called Rope Day "demeaning and insulting to the Indian culture and heritage." By sanctioning Michigamua, the university permitted "our culture to be distorted and ridiculed because of our race and national origin". Replying to Barner, members of Michigamua said the "tribe" was "based on principles that reject any insulting or offensive actions" and promised to "eliminate all public actions of our organization". The commission ordered Michigamua to stop "playing Indian" in public. From then on, the "tribe" initiated new members without spectators at the university's off-campus Radrick Farm property. Meetings in the "wigwam" continued. Later cadres were reported to have "played Indian" in public, breaking the pledge to operate solely in private.
In 1976, Michigamua's males-only tradition came under fire from two women students associated with the university's student government, the Michigan Student Assembly. They were Amy Blumenthal, MSA's vice president, and Anita Tanay, a former member. Blumenthal and Tanay asserted that by providing facilities and aid to the all-male Michigamua — including its rent-free room in the Union, special privileges to use Radrick Farm, and alleged favoritism in access to football tickets — the university was violating Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972, which forbade gender discrimination by educational institutions that received federal funding.
A stand-off ensued among Michigamua, the university, and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare admit women; 2) abandon its status as a recognized student organization and leave the campus; or 3) declare itself a social fraternity and abide by the rules that governed other such organizations, which would likely end its exclusive use of the "wigwam". Michigamua said it would accept only some version of the third option. The university deferred action pending HEW's ruling.
In 1979, more than three years after Blumenthal and Tanay's complaint, HEW ruled the university had violated Title IX by recognizing Michigamua as a student group and providing a space to meet, thus rejecting the university's claim that Michigamua was independent of the university. HEW also noted that Michigamua was widely understood to be an honorary society, not a social fraternity, so it was subject to Title IX's ban on gender discrimination. The university was ordered to enforce changes in Michigamua or risk a loss of federal funding.
Students and administrators worked out a compromise. They would establish the Tower Society, a new honorary organization with two parts — Michigamua for men and Adara for leading women students. Michigamua would continue to meet in the "wigwam" while Adara would meet in a room one floor below, and the two groups would hold regular joint meetings.
This arrangement satisfied HEW but not Michigamua's critics, especially Native American students. One of them, Grace Pego, had filed a separate civil-rights claim in 1976 shortly after Blumenthal and Tanay made their Title IX complaint. Pego asserted that Michigamua — and thus the university, by supporting it— was violating an amendment to the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 "by denying membership to minorities and ridiculing Native American culture." The university deflected federal action by pointing to Michigamua's induction of numerous African Americans and citing the group's assertion that it "holds the American Indian in the highest esteem." But Native American students and their non-native supporters would echo Pego's complaint in the coming years, insisting that Michigamua's traditions made a racist mockery of native cultures.
Confronted with such complaints, members of Michigamua usually invoked either of two points of view. Older alumni, echoing the founders, typically argued that Michigamua honored Native Americans. Younger members were more likely to say that critics were mistaking Michigamua's practices as commentary on actual Native Americans, when in fact the "tribe" had crafted a subculture of its own out of pop-culture Indian caricatures. The Michigan Daily quoted an unnamed member of the 1975 cadre as saying: "Michigamua — unfortunately, maybe — has adopted things from the grade-B movies on TV. I don't think anybody in Michigamua considers them to be Indian. It's always Michigamua tradition, Michigamua lore, an identity of Michigamua rather than Indian."
From the 1970s through the 1990s, Michigamua continued to induct new cadres, but its standing had declined. With the departure of Rope Day from the central campus, many Michigan students were no longer even aware of the organization. It also came under scrutiny for hazing activities banned by the Michigan Student Assembly.
In 1988, two new blows challenged Michigamua's grip on its traditions. The Michigan Student Assembly voted to withdraw its recognition of Michigamua as an approved student organization, citing critics' charges of racism and elitism. And the Michigan Civil Rights Commission warned the state's universities that any use of Indian names, logos, or mascots violated state civil rights laws.
In response, Michigamua promised in 1989 to drop nearly all faux-Native American references. Henceforth its rituals and nomenclature would refer only to University of Michigan traditions. Members would be called "fighting wolves" — a reference to the university's team name, the Wolverines — instead of "fighting braves". The group would refer to itself as a "pride" rather than a "tribe". There would be no more "Injun talk" in meetings. Only one explicit reference to Native Americans would remain — the name Michigamua itself, with its echo of the Ojibwe language. With these concessions, the group regained recognition as an approved student organization and fended off state penalties.
In the 1990s, Michigamua tried to adjust to a new era in which multiculturalism and gender equality had been embraced as governing principles. By the late 1990s, each class included at least a few members who identified as progressive. The greatest change came in 1999 when, under pressure from university officials who had rethought Title IX's applicability to single-sex student organizations, Michigamua admitted its first women members.