Bill Requires School Discussion Of Race-Based Mascots [POLL]

NEW YORK — In June, two competing Change.org petitions were started about the East Islip High School's Redmen mascot. One was called "Retire the Redmen"; the other, "Save the Redmen."

The first petition urged the town and school district to retire the Redmen mascot "because it's offensive to Native Americans."

The second petition said the mascot should stay exactly as it is. "We want to honor the Redmen name, like it was intended to do," said Tyler O'Neill. "Stop trying to divide the community over something that honors natives."

Earlier this month, John Jay High School in Cross River announced that it would be changing its Indians mascot, which was considered controversial, to the Wolves. Unfortunately, reaching that decision was not without controversy, because the student body had chosen as its preference Wolfpack.

School officials made the change to the Wolves when they found that "wolfpack" was used in 1989 by the media and others to dehumanize the Central Park Five, a group of boys who were falsely accused and wrongfully convicted of assaulting and raping a female jogger in New York City.

State Senator Pete Harckham, who represents the district where John Jay High School is located, introduced a bill this week that would require school districts that use logos, mascots and team names viewed as being racially polarizing to have "community conversations and discussions in order to reach a shared consensus on the subject and a path forward."

Originally, the bill would have given school districts three years to remove any race-based mascots or they would lose state funding. The bill was amended to require the community discussion instead.

Harckham said the legislation was in response to the number of communities in New York — such as Cross River and East Islip — who were questioning or have done away with team names and mascots that Native Americans and others find offensive.

"Today, we can no longer simply dismiss the idea that school or team nicknames and mascots are innocuous and do not hurt or offend other people," he said.

Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who lost a bid for a third term and also ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2014, is running to replace Harckham as state senator in District 40.

Astorino took to Facebook to say that Harckham's bill was a waste of time.

"This insane bill threatens many schools that have nicknames/mascots such as Spartans, Dutchmen, Warriors and yes, even the Fighting Irish, which is in honor of Irish immigrant soldiers who fought for the Union army to abolish slavery," he posted.

"Not only is this a bad bill, but why on earth is this the priority of Peter Harckham with all that is going on in the world?" Astorino said.

Harckham told the Journal News that cutting funding was still an option, but there was a consensus that having discussions about the issue was necessary before taking such a drastic step like cutting aid.

Now it's your turn to weigh in on the issue. Vote in our unscientific poll and tell us what you think in the comments.