The progressive action committee against racism in sports and the media has already said that they intend to continue to protest the removal of the term "Illini" and "Fighting Illini" from the Univeristy. They consider the removal of the Chief has only a "half" victory. This was in a tribune or suntimes story on Friday I believe.
Like you said, they will continue to push for more and more and the more they get the more they will want as each victory only emboldens them and fills them with a sense of self righteousness and invincibility. The term give them an inch and they'll take a mile certainly applies here.
They WILL STRONGLY oppose any university santctioned permanent memorial to the Chief. They will pressure the school to "sit" on the Chief logo trademark so that other groups will not be able to use it for fan clothing or memorabilia. They will also attempt to outlaw or forbid the wearing or display of the Chief logo on Unversity property including athletic facilities saying that that such displays are an act of violent intimidation and equate the image to the Nazi Swatstika and Confederate flag. No joke. They intend to do this. Freedom of speech or expression be damned.
You might be singing a different tune. Are there any Illinois left? I mean, wouldn't you see it as wrong if the Germans had a college team named the Mighty Kikes? White people committed genocide and now we use the racial epithets as mascots. That might not be the case with the Illini, I don't know and I'm not looking up what Illinois means, but 'redskin' or 'chief' or 'brave' was used the same way the n word was- a racial slur.
How do you think they came up with the Indian names to begin with? Probably a few guys sitting around trying to think of a mascot and one says "What's in our area that we can name our teams after?" To which the other replies "Hmm, well, there used to be a lot of Indians here until we drove them all out, we could name it after them since it was kind of their place to begin with," which seems like more of a slap in the face than a tribute to me.
Try on the shoes the other side wears for a little while. Maybe it'll help you understand why they're so adamant about it.