NY school board to fight removal of Native American mascot
CAMBRIDGE, N.Y. - A New York town's school board has voted to appeal an order from the state education commissioner to change their mascot and imagery, which depicts a Native American man.
The Cambridge school board decided to appeal the order in a 3-2 vote Wednesday evening, the Glen Falls Post-Star reported.
The school district says it feels singled out since there are dozens of other school districts in the state with similar mascots.
The school board had voted to change the mascot in June, then reversed that decision after new members of the board were voted in.
The current board president, Jessica Ziehm, said, "This is about our rights as a community and a school district."
Board member Neal Gifford, who voted against challenging the order, said Education Commissioner Betty Rosa wasn't singling the board out when she ordered the mascot be changed. Gifford was the school board president in June when it first voted to retire the mascot.
The vote authorizes the board's attorneys to "commence any appropriate legal action necessary on behalf of the Board of Education to challenge the Commissioner’s Decision," the newspaper reported.
The Indian name and mascot have been a contentious issue in the community since a July 2020 petition was started asking to retire the name and logo.
Schools across the country have retired mascots that depict Native Americans, though not all communities have chosen to do so.
Cambridge is located northeast of Albany, near the state’s border with Vermont. Last summer, the school district recalled copies of a yearbook after it was discovered that a student had listed Adolf Hitler’s autobiography as his favorite book.
Cambridge Central School was the site of the Norman Rockwell painting "Girl With Black Eye" or "Triumph in Defeat" which appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 23, 1953.
With the Associated Press.