Ole Miss Shelves Mascot Fraught With Baggage

...After many years of complaints about the racial insensitivity of having a man dressed as a Confederate soldier as the symbol of a university where 14 percent of students are black, Ole Miss is pulling the plug on Colonel Reb this football season....

It is part of a longstanding plan to recast the university’s image, still tarnished by its reputation for racial strife in the 1960s, to signal that it is more tolerant and diverse. Confederate battle flags were discouraged from football games years ago, and “Dixie” is no longer the unofficial fight song....