Petition To Change Wayne Valley Mascot Gains Momentum

WAYNE, NJ — On the football field, the Wayne Valley Indians enjoyed one of the most successful seasons in program history in 2019, winning the Regional Championship in a game at MetLife Stadium.

Though the football team will be remembered fondly by high school students, alumni and township community, a group of over 2,000 have recently expressed frustration over the mascot that represents the school, and its sports teams.

A petition to change the mascot is being hosted on change.org, and was started by Amanda Kiel, a senior-to-be at Wayne Valley High School. She writes that recent language from Wayne Schools promoting tolerance and anti-racism messaging can't be taken seriously while the Indian mascot is still a part of the district.

"The Wayne Valley population does not call themselves Indians out of respect for Native Americans," she wrote on the petition page. "If we did, then our snack stand by the football field would not be called "The Teepee" and our school newspaper would not be called Smoke Signals."

She says that student dissatisfaction with the mascot isn't new, and that since publishing the petition she's received comments from alumni who felt the same way decades ago.

In the current moment, however, school district officials are listening.

Wayne Superintendent Mark Toback says the school will be looking into the mascot, and a number of matters involving diversity expansion within the public schools when a committee is formed this summer.

"Part of the goal includes an incremental approach," said Toback of what the committee hopes to achieve. What this means, he said, is that rather than forming a committee that takes years to enact plans for change, the committee will prioritize issues of the highest need, and make substantive and visible changes as they progress through their goals.

This approach is in line with what Kiel believes is progress.

"I completely understand the constraints that the board is under in terms of time, resources, and personnel. That said, while a physical change of the racist symbolism around the school (like murals, uniforms, and signs) should be prioritized, it does not need to be replaced overnight. We want to create a timeline of these changes over the next few months and years, to make a transition that is gradual and doable," said Kiel in an email to Patch.

The petition was first announced on the Wayne Black Lives Matter Protest! Facebook page, which was originally used to organize the Wayne protest, and has since been updated with recent news, and served as a home to thoughtful discourse on the topics of race and social progress.

Kiel has received plenty of support, she said, but has also been met with people resistant to change.

On Tuesday, an admin of that page reported that Kiel has been receiving racist comments on social media since the petition went live. She confirmed that she had indeed received hateful comments directed at the petition, and her personally.

"Before publishing the petition, I was aware that I would get backlash, but I’ve been surprised by how publically my neighbors, peers, and community members were willing to make racist and offensive comments on social media and directly to me," she said.

Kiel believes the quick turn to hateful and racist comments — some violent in nature, she said — is telling of the current Wayne Township mindset.

"The fact that Wayne residents have been so aggressively opposed to this change is telling of how far they will go to defend not being racist while refusing to take any real action," said Kiel. " I think the most difficult part about changing the mascot for these people isn’t “tradition” or “hometown pride” but, rather, admitting what they once supported was wrong."

She did, however, make specific note of that fact that she feels the positive and helpful comments from people around the community have outweighed the negative "in both quantity and thoughtfulness."

Since the start of national protests against the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, there have been two petitions for change within Wayne Public Schools, including this one.

Bianca Garcia created a petition seeking to diversify the K-8 curriculum with more topics about Black history.

"I should not have learned more about Black history from one week on Instagram than I did in 6 years attending Wayne Public schools," she wrote.

Since the curriculum diversification petition went live, both Garcia and Superintendent Mark Toback have confirmed that they will meet to discuss the current curriculum, and initiatives that are currently underway to further diversify it.

The curriculum petition has received over 5,000 signatures to date.

In the wake of the killing of Floyd, Toback wrote a letter to students, staff and families of the township public schools addressing a racist TikTok video posted by a student, who can be seen on video asking a black man if he knows who George Floyd is, before saying "I'm glad he died."

Toback called the language used in the video "hateful", and the matter is being investigated by the district and Wayne Police, who said they cannot comment on the matter because the person in question is a minor.

"These statements do not represent our District and do not support our core values of inclusivity and respect," said Toback, in the letter. "We strive to educate all of our students every day to stand up against bias and discrimination and to value one another."

Students and others in the community have pushed back on this idea, saying that current initiatives haven't gone far enough to promote that idea of diversity. What the district does in this current moment could do a lot to change that perception.

"A non-decision would be the same as the administration saying, “our convenience is more important than your safety,'" said Kiel.