JACKSON, Miss. -- The University of Mississippi has shortened one of its fight songs to discourage football fans from chanting "the South will rise again" during part of the tune, which critics say is an offensive reminder of the region's intolerant past.

However, some fans have continued to recite the chant at the end of the song, "From Dixie With Love," despite the change made last week at the chancellor's request. The Ole Miss band performs the medley before and after games.

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Earlier this month, the Ole Miss student government passed a resolution suggesting the chant be replaced by the phrase, "To hell with LSU."

Dan Jones, who became Ole Miss chancellor in July, said he asked the school's band director, David Wilson, to modify the song to support the efforts of the Associated Student Body. He said he has received complaints from alumni that the slogan is offensive.

"The fact is, the phrase 'The South Will Rise Again' is not part of our tradition or spirit, and it is inconsistent with the university's values and what Ole Miss stands for -- a great public university with a focus on the future," Jones said in a phone interview Thursday from the campus in Oxford.

The modified version of the song ends abruptly before the chanting phase starts. It was first played Saturday at Ole Miss's homecoming game against the University of Alabama at Birmingham, but that didn't stop some fans from chanting.

Brian Ferguson, 26, head of the Colonel Reb Foundation, said he views the university actions as an attempt to silence students.

"I think it's a big to-do about nothing. There were very few people other than the students who knew to say it," said Ferguson, whose organization works to preserve traditions at Ole Miss. But Ferguson agreed that the chant really isn't a tradition.

"If the students get fired up and upset enough about it, they're going to continue to say it. Our biggest fear is that that's going to lead them to eliminate 'From Dixie With Love,' altogether."

The song blends the Confederate Army's fight song, "Dixie," with the Union Army's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," according to Peter K. Frost, a visiting professor of history and international studies at Ole Miss.

The school has worked to erase its image as a bastion of the Old South, which was solidified in 1962 when James Meredith's admission as the first black student led to a bloody standoff.

The university six years ago decided not to have an on-field mascot during sporting events, getting rid of the long-standing Colonel Rebel, a white-haired old man who carries a cane and resembles a plantation owner. At the time, school officials had said they needed a more athletic-looking mascot. The teams are still called the Rebels.

Sophomore Cortez Moss, director of communications for the ASB, said the organization is trying to explain to students why the phrase is offensive.

"You take back on that slave mentality," said Moss, who is black. "I know the South won't rise again and the South can't rise again."

Former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, who donated $100 million to the university in 2000, said the chant should be abandoned.

"I hope it will pass on quietly and the students will refrain from the chant, but I found out a long time ago it's hard to tell students what to say and what not to say," Barksdale said Thursday.

Roun McNeill, a former ASB president who is now in law school at Ole Miss, said his own decision to refrain from the chant was easily made.

"I said the chant one day and there was a black family sitting in front of me and they turned around and gave me this look like I hurt them," McNeill said.

It pisses me off very much so.

Not really, it doesn't help the school in any way. The only thing singing it does is maybe hurt chances at a recruit signing.

No it doesn't. The chant is stupid.

Nothing like screaming "the South will rise again" at a team thats about 90% black to show support.

...and there you have it.

I have spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what Sandberg is saying in your sig...

It is one of those things that will slowly die. You cannot turn it off like a light switch. At the game yesterday, the students chanted it again, and I bet it was out of spite for the Chancellor's unilateral decision.

I full-heartedly believe it needs to stop, but like Barksdale said, it is nearly impossible to silence people. And if Chancellor Jones stopped playing Dixie, there would be an outcry.

of all there is in life to be pissed off at............you gotta stop and think about yourself if you allow yourself to be pissed off at this

in other words, get over yourself and realize how friggin trivial it is and also wonder just why are you pissed off?

Yet I hear black people say it at ever game. And I know black people who don't want it to change. People need to stop being sissies and grow up though, and that's for both sides of the argument.

Not to flame or piss off our Ole Miss members, but do any of you think we will see a day when they decide that the fact your nicknamed the Rebels is offensive and change it to something more PC?

I think they tried that earlier this decade. I hear they want to give us a new mascot, not entirely sure.

I know someone on the committee. Flood? Something involving a horse?

I don't know. I hope it's not the Flood... reminds me too much of Tulane. I realize that was what people called yall back in the day, but that was then...... like we were the Maroons and the Aggies. I never hear those associated with us anymore.

Already have. But they don't advertise the Quiche Eating Ferrets too much.

I could care less....never been into the band...in High school, I was always in the locker room when they played so I never "got into" what they did. At Ole Miss games, that's when i get a pop and a pi$$. Not knocking those that get into that kind of thing but I've never cared......