Passan: Why Cleveland Indians' name change is a half-century overdue

For those who believe modern society has grown soft and that's why Cleveland's baseball team no longer will be called the Indians in the near future, a quick history lesson.

In 1972, the athletic teams at Stanford, one of the preeminent schools in the United States, were known as the Indians. Following the objections of a group of Native American students, university ombudswoman Lois Amsterdam supported them in a blistering critique: "Sensitivity and awareness do not come easily when childish misrepresentations in games, history books and motion pictures make up a large part of our experience." The university president concurred. And like that, however noble the original intentions of the…