Dartmouth school board to set up group to research mascot issue

DARTMOUTH — For the past five decades, the National Congress of American Indians has been diligently opposing the use of derogatory stereotypes of Native peoples in media and popular culture, which includes sports mascots and related imagery. The organization and its local allies have been successful in stopping the practice in some cases, and are continuing the fight against such unflattering characterizations all across the nation.

The debate over native-themed team names and mascots came to Massachusetts this summer, as the House and Senate debated bills proposing to ban them in the commonwealth.

Now, the debate has reached Dartmouth, where some residents want a community discussion about Dartmouth High School’s continued use of the “Indians” name and an “approved” Native American character to represent its sports teams.

A handful of residents and other interested parties came to the Sept. 3 meeting of Dartmouth School Committee to ask the school board to review the Indians name and reconsider using a Native American character on team gear and in the media.

The local action was prompted in part by the recent signing of a bill making Maine the first state to ban the use of all native peoples “themed” mascots and imagery in public schools, colleges, and universities, said resident David Ehrens.

He said there should be a community discussion about the name and mascot, including conversations with local Native American tribes to find out their feelings about the DHS mascot. “The school committee must open up this topic for community dialogue,” Ehrens said.

The opinion was seconded by resident and retired UMass Dartmouth history professor Jim Hijiya, who said the topic is “a very important issue, and a very complicated issue” for the town to bring up for public debate.

The discussion took place at the School Committee’s annual summer “work session” where suggestions for specific topics for future agenda items are solicited from the public and board members at the start of the new school year.

School Committee Chair Kathleen Amaral said that the matter was a worthwhile agenda item, but not a priority item for the first few meetings of the new year. Most board members agreed, and endorsed member Shannon Jenkins’ idea to set up a “working group” of committee members and advocates for both sides of the issue to gather information on the topic and report back to the full board.

Committee member Chris Oliver said that current high school students, DHS alumni, and school staffers should all be heard on the matter as well as those advocating for a change. “The Dartmouth Indians engenders a lot of pride in Dartmouth,” he said, and there will be some resistance to a new name and logo, he predicted.

John Nunes, the member with the longest tenure on the board, said the name and the “mascot” figure was chosen in the late 1960s, with input from Wampanoag tribal members. “Everybody knows us as the Indians,” he said. “This name means a lot to this town.”

There is no derogatory side to the name or logo, chosen as a sign of respect for the town’s original inhabitants, he said. “We do not do anything disrespectful to the Native Americans, and we never have,” Nunes declared.

What will be considered politically incorrect next, the Fairhaven High Blue Devils “being seen as anti-Christian, or the Wareham Vikings being offensive” to those of Scandinavian descent, Nunes asked.

Despite his opposition to any name change, Nunes said he was willing to support establishing a working group or special subcommittee to collect public input on the matter. Amaral said establishing the subcommittee could go on the Oct. 7 agenda for discussion, with further debate scheduled after the subcommittee holds some public forums and makes a report on community opinion.

LaSella Hall, director of the New Bedford area branch of the NAACP, was on hand at the meeting to support a re-examination of the name and mascot issue. He said his organization would like to be “a community partner” in the debate that might take place in Dartmouth later this year, and volunteered to join the subcommittee to be considered by the school board.

When the name and mascot debate flared up on social media earlier this summer, former DHS Athletic Director Jeffrey Caron was quoted in the local newspaper as saying this was not the first time this issue has come up in recent years.

He said that representatives of the Wampanoag tribes had originally endorsed the logo image still being used today. Superintendent Bonny Gifford was also quoted as saying the name and logo were a sign of respect for the Wampanoag tribes living in this area, and were not seen as offensive by most residents.