A high school in Pennsylvania will be reinstating its Native American mascot after a local school board gave its approval.
The Southern York County School District voted 7-2 recently to allow Susquehannock High School to use its Warrior logos. The move comes after five new members of the school committee won election to the board by running on a platform that was pro-Native American, Fox News Digital reported.
It also comes, though, as sports teams at both the amateur and professional level have started to ban mascots that were Native American in nature.
In 2015, California banned “Redskins” as a name that schools could use as its mascot or have on its logo.
Five years later, in 2020, the NFL team now known as the Washington Commanders did away with its “Redskins” moniker. It was officially renamed the Washington Commanders in 2022.
After the 2021 season, the MLB team in Cleveland changed its name from the Indians to the Guardians.
Many activists were pushing professional sports teams to change their names and mascots from Native American references, claiming they were examples of systemic racism in America. Many have done so since then, though others have not.
For instance, the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League have kept their name. In 2020, team owners said they weren’t changing the name because they were honoring a specific person — Black Hawk of Illinois.
Florida State University’s football team is still well known for having a person don a Native American headdress riding a horse to the middle of the field before each game starts. Plus, their fans still routinely perform what’s known as the “tomahawk chop.”
But, this recent victory in the Pennsylvania school district represents a lot of fight against cancel culture throughout the country.
Andre Billeaudeuax, an historian and Native American activist, recently commented to Fox News Digital:
“This vote was the Lexington & Concord moment in the effort to defeat cancel culture.”
All seven of the approval votes came from school board members who were elected since 2021 — when the school district banned the high school from using the logo.
Last week, the Native American Guardians Association released a statement that said:
“The SYCSD school board stands as a role model and blueprint for other communities fighting for their Native names and imagery.”
And new school board member Jennifer Henkel, who voted in favor of the high school reinstating its mascot, commented:
“This movement was about erasing Native American culture, and I wasn’t about to stand for that.”
She told news outlets that she first got involved with the school district directly after she saw what a huge negative impact that the COVID-19 era lockdowns had on the community, as well as the rise of so-called cancel culture.
Not everyone was in favor of this move, however.
Former school board member Deborah Kalina, for instance, wrote an op-ed in the York Daily Record that was critical of the new school board members. She wrote:
“They came into their new positions with bravado to push their personal agendas, and not with humility to learn their jobs.”
