Shelter Island district considers changing 'Indians' mascot

The Shelter Island school board is considering changing the school’s mascot from the Indians following a movement led by young people who say the current logo and team name are offensive, although others are defending them as tradition.

A group of residents spoke before the school board on Aug. 17, with most urging them to retire the logo and a few speaking in favor of keeping it as is. The board is expected to vote on changing the emblem at its meeting next Monday, school board president Kathy Lynch said.

The school’s logo, which appears in the middle of the gymnasium floor and other locations, features the head of an American Indian wearing a feathered headdress. The image also appears on some school uniforms.

A petition to change the mascot started by 24-year-old Shelter Island resident Lisa Kaasik has amassed more than 2,100 online signatures. Kaasik led a similar unsuccessful movement in 2013 when she was a senior in the high school.

“Shelter Island School has maintained its offensive and insensitive mascot of the Indians for far too long,” the petition reads. “An educational institution has the obligation to dismantle stereotypes, not encourage them and certainly not force the students to be proud of them.”

Similar concerns have been voiced on Long Island and at the national level.

The NFL’s Washington, D.C., football team changed its name from the Redskins earlier this year and in May, Maine banned all native symbols as mascots.

Still, more than 1,100 people have signed another petition to keep the mascot, contending that the name shows reverence for the Manhanset Indians who lived on the Island before English settlers.

That’s how Meredith Page, whose daughter Camryn started the petition, sees it. Page noted the current mascot however, does not represent the Manhanset Indians and perhaps could be modified.

“We’ve always been very proud of the name,” said Page, a 1993 Shelter Island High School graduate. “It was a symbol of strength whenever we had sports events.”

Lynch said she hoped community members could continue a dialogue and reach a consensus.

“To assume those on the side of keeping the mascot are racist or those on the side of retiring the mascot are trying to erase history only fans the flame of contentiousness that is so prevalent in the country right now,” she said in an email. “We are a small community and see each other as neighbors and friends. It would be nice to be the example that it's possible to come together in a unified way and make a decision that we all support.”

American Indians, however, have publicly said a school curriculum that recognizes historical injustices would be a better way to honor local tribes than an Indian mascot.

“It is not acceptable to maintain a racist ‘tradition,’ ” Harry B. Wallace, a former chief of the Unkechaug Nation wrote in a July Newsday op-ed. “We see the harm it does, especially to young people who learn this imagery and keep it as part of their false understanding of the history of Native people.”

By Vera Chinese

vera.chinese@newsday.com@VeraChinese

Vera Chinese joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.