ALBANY – The New York Board of Regents has officially banned all uses of images and names for school mascots related to Indigenous people.
The board voted unanimously Tuesday morning, without discussion. The proposal was announced by the state Education Department in November, and education officials have been urging school boards to begin the process to change mascot images and names ever since.
Some districts have already replaced their mascots. However, many school officials said they would wait until the proposal was officially approved by the Board of Regents, and pressed for details on whether they could keep names with slight changes, such as keeping Raiders or Warriors but dropping images of Indigenous people.
The Education Department convened an advisory group of Indigenous people to make recommendations on those questions. All of the proposals were rejected, with advisory group members calling such changes an “evasion.”
Some schools also argued that their use of mascots that referred to Indigenous people as warriors or raiders was a term of respect.
An advisory group member said that was clearly not true.
What school districts have done, he said, was to stereotype Indigenous people, act like they were exterminated, and then suggest that using the stereotyped images and phrases would teach “the revering of an exterminated group.”
Education Department officials say they expect some school districts will now take the matter to court. They also intend to send out details soon explaining the new rules to school boards.
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