Some bad news arrived this week for the Syosset Central School District on Long Island in New York. Their football team’s name is the Syosset Braves and their mascot wears the trappings of a Native American Chief. Under a new rule issued by the state’s Board of Regents, the school will have until the end of the 2024-2025 school year to change the team’s name and ditch the mascot. And they are far from being alone. A total of 133 schools around the state still have Native American team names and mascots following that theme. Schools failing to follow this directive will be at risk of losing state funding. (NY Post)

Public school teams in New York will soon be barred from calling themselves names like the Warriors, Chiefs, Redmen or Braves following a Tuesday ruling by Albany education honchos.

The Board of Regents, which presides over the state’s education department, voted to phase out Native American-related nicknames as part of a politically correct national effort to scrub racially insensitive imagery from sports teams.

New York is dominated by reminders of the indigenous culture of the area, primarily built around the Iroquois tribal confederacy, including the Oneida Indian Nation, which is a primary proponent of the new rule. Many towns are named after the various tribes that lived across the state. I grew up not far from a village named Mohawk and their sports teams were always called the Mohicans. Apparently, that will be a thing of the past now.

One of the names that’s stirring debate is the inclusion of “warriors” on the list of banned names. “Warrior” has more than one meaning and has historically been used as a reference to military fighters of all stripes. And nobody seems to be pushing San Francisco’s professional basketball team to change its name. (The Golden State Warriors) Of course, they have a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on their uniforms rather than any sort of Native American imagery, so perhaps people are less likely to pay attention.

That specific change will show up often. There are a significant number of schools in New York with teams that go by the name “warriors.”

The ban also applies to schools like Liverpool (Warriors), Westhill (Warriors), Weedsport (Warriors), Canastota (Raiders), Clinton (Warriors), Fulton (Red Raiders), Hannibal (Warriors), Indian River (Warriors), Lowville (Red Raiders), Morrisville-Eaton (Warriors), Utica Proctor (Raiders) and Whitesboro (Warriors), with less obvious Native American connotations.

There was uncertainty about whether it would apply to schools that used the Warriors or Raiders nicknames, especially for schools like Liverpool, which rebranded its imagery and mascots to be representative of a Roman Warrior in 2003.

I’m still not sure how I feel about this. I have more Native American blood in me than the average person (with no apologies to Elizabeth Warren) and the names have never bothered me. Of course, I didn’t grow up on a reservation, so I suppose I can see how some are offended. But I’d always thought that these schools and team names were intended to honor the history of New York’s tribes. But if tribal leaders are saying it’s offensive, I suppose that’s the way it will have to be.