Trump vows to ‘fight' for school that refuses to change its Native American mascot
President Donald Trump offered his support to an issue that has sewn divisions in one part of New York: a high school's mascot depicting a Native American.
In April 2023, the New York State Board of Regents unanimously voted to ban school districts from using Indigenous iconography and names for mascots. Of the 13 school districts on Long Island, nine have complied. The district that Massapequa High School belongs to is among those that have not.
Massapequa was among four school districts on Long Island that filed a federal suit challenging the ban, arguing their choice of team names and mascots were protected by the First Amendment.
As debate over the logo has grown, Trump entered the discussion and the federal government intervened.
'I agree with the people in Massapequa, Long Island, who are fighting furiously to keep the Massapequa Chiefs logo on their Teams and School,' Trump said on Truth Social. 'Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population.'
The president added that the mascot has become the school's identity and compared it to other mascots.
'I don't see the Kansas City Chiefs changing their name anytime soon!' Trump's post read.
Harry Wallace, chief of the Unkechaug Indian Nation from Long Island, told Gothamist that, based on research, such mascots perpetuate racist symbolism and harm all people, including people who are not Indigenous.
'But this is not about logic, it's about emotion,' he said to the news website, talking about the Massapequa case. 'It is ironic that a town that has a history of killing the local Indigenous population should now claim as a tradition a fake image of those very same people.'
Shinnecock Indian Nation Council of Trustees member Germain Smith told the same publication that these mascots hurt children.
'We are not a symbol,' Smith said. 'We are not history. We exist today.'
Trump wrote that he asked Secretary of Education Linda McMahon 'to fight for the people of Massepequa on this very important issue,' he wrote. 'LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!'
Days later, he posed with a Massapequa Chiefs sweater in the Oval Office.
On Friday, McMahon announced she would investigate New York's state education department and the state board of regents over threats to pull funding from the Massapequa School District over its allowance of using the mascot for the high school. The Office for Civil Rights will determine if the funding threat 'constitutes discrimination on the basis of race and national origin,' McMahon's office said in a statement.
'While New York chooses to prioritize erasing Native Americans, their rich history, and their deep connection to the state, it is requiring schools to divert time and resources away from what really matters: educating our students,' McMahon said in the statement. 'It is not lost on the Department that there are several mascots that refer to indigenous or ethnic groups — the Vikings, Fighting Irish, the Cowboys — and yet New York has specifically singled out Native American heritage."
Users on social media showed support for Trump and McMahon in bringing further attention to the issue. Others dismissed the president's involvement.
'The Massapequa Chiefs should not be a priority in the Oval Office,' one X user posted on April 22.
Resharing Trump with the Chiefs sweater, conservative commentator and YouTube host Benny Johnson simply posted on X the word, 'Epic.'
'Massapequa wants to celebrate its heritage of being white settlers who dispossessed and killed the Native population, then appropriated a culture from 2,000 miles away to claim they belonged,' another X user posted on April 27.
'Nobody needs the president of the United States weighing in on a single local school!' another X user posted on April 23.
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