A Long Island school district violated federal civil rights law by changing the names of its school mascot – a move it made to comply with a state ban on Native American imagery, the Trump administration said Thursday.
The decision by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Thursday against the Connetquot Central School District is the latest challenge from Washington DC to an Empire State law that bans the use of Native American-inspired names, mascots or logs.
The Connetquot school board drew fire from the feds for complying with the state requirement.
“OCR found the district violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by re-naming their traditional ‘Thunderbirds’ mascot to the ‘T-Birds’ solely because it originates from Native American symbolism,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement.
“We expect the District to do the right thing and comply with our resolution agreement to voluntarily resolve its civil rights violation and restore the Thunderbirds’ rightful name,” Richey said. “The Trump Administration will not relent in ensuring that every community is treated equally under the law.”
Federal officials argue that the state ban on Native American-themed logos and names violates civil rights law because the same standard does not apply to other racial or ethnic groups, “thereby unlawfully implementing race- and national-origin-based classifications in education policy.”
In August, Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon stood behind Connetquot and another Long Island school district mascot, Massapequa High School’s Chiefs.
McMahon praised the district’s decision to fight to keep the name against “woke ideologues who are attempting to strip them of their beloved Chiefs and Thunderbirds.”
Connetquot officials reached a compromise with state officials in September by agreeing to change the name to “T-Birds,” which is essentially a shortened version of Thunderbirds.
With Thursday’s ruling, the feds said that’s not good enough.
“We warned Connetquot School District not to violate the rights of Native Americans and our clients,” Oliver Roberts and Chap Peterson, the lawyers for the Native American Guardians Association, said in a statement after the federal ruling.
“The district’s actions have been sad and disgraceful, and it’ll now face several consequences from the US Department of Education and Trump Administration,” they said.
