As the White House targets diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in public schools, President Trump is stepping into a local issue that rarely attracts the attention of leaders in Washington by taking on a school mascot.
Mr. Trump this week homed in on a suburban hamlet on Long Island, where the public school district is ensnared in a lengthy, bitter clash with New York’s state government over a mandate to banish its decades-old “Chief” logo, an illustrated side profile of a Native American man wearing a feathered headdress.
More than two years ago, the state’s Education Department required school districts to abandon mascots inspired by Native American culture or risk losing state funding. The order came amid a national effort to eliminate logos and nicknames that Indigenous people may find disrespectful.
But the ban led to a steep backlash across Nassau County, including in Massapequa, a middle-class swath of the South Shore where most residents voted for Mr. Trump in the November election. The town’s name is derived from a Native American term for “great waterland.”
The district’s five-member board of education swiftly denounced the prohibition, a Republican state senator proposed a legal carve out and students painted an enormous mural of the mascot near their high school in protest. School leaders argued in a federal lawsuit that the rule amounted to government overreach and a violation of the First Amendment.
The “Chief” name and logo are used across the district, including at Massapequa High School, though the school does not have a traditional costumed mascot, according to the school board.
Even as the White House has vowed to send control of education “back to the states,” it has not shied away from entering local conflicts over D.E.I. programs and transgender athletes. Still, Mr. Trump’s entry into the debate was remarkable.
It is not every day that small-town mascot drama in a school district of roughly 6,500 students is a topic of conversation in the Oval Office.
The president weighed in three weeks after a federal district judge moved closer to dismissing the school district’s lawsuit, writing that Massapequa officials had failed to provide sufficient evidence for their claims, including that the choice of the mascot qualified as protected speech.
On the cusp of losing its battle, the school board reached out to the White House, according to the New York Post. By Monday, the issue had successfully made it onto the president’s radar.
Mr. Trump criticized New York’s policy and called on the federal education secretary, Linda McMahon, “to fight for the people of Massapequa on this very important issue.”
“Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. “What could be wrong with using the name, ‘Chief’? I don’t see the Kansas City Chiefs changing their name anytime soon!”
He added: “LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!”
It was not immediately clear how Mr. Trump wanted Ms. McMahon to “fight for the people of Massapequa.” A spokeswoman for the federal Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.
But in the last three months, it has proved perilous to attract this type of scrutiny from the Trump administration, which recently moved to pull all federal funding for Maine’s public schools because the state allows transgender girls to compete on girls’ sports teams.
Mr. Trump is threatening to slash funding for low-income students across the nation if states do not eliminate what it argues are illegal diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools.
New York’s Education Department was the first to publicly refuse to comply with the order.
State leaders have described the mascot policy, which was first rolled out in 2022, as one of many efforts to promote inclusion in schools. The policy came amid an extended national movement that saw 20 states take steps to change Native American mascot names or iconography through legislation and other moves, according to the National Congress of American Indians, a major American Indian and Alaska Native rights organization.
(Some professional sports teams have also changed their names or dropped mascots in recent years. Since 2020, Kansas City Chiefs fans have been banned from wearing ceremonial headdresses to games. The team has retained its name, but it retired its mascot, a horse named Warpaint.)
At the time of New York’s ban, roughly five dozen school districts in the state were still using Native American-inspired mascots and logos. Districts were given until the end of June this year to eliminate all banned mascots.
Most districts have complied with the mandate. But a handful have resisted it, and perhaps nowhere has the backlash been more potent and enduring than in Massapequa and some other districts on Long Island.
The mascot’s logo and its name are plastered across Massapequa’s campuses, on welcome signs, football fields and classroom posters. The phrase “once a Chief, always a Chief” is commonly used among students and alumni, according to the federal lawsuit.
The mascot’s image is also embedded throughout local government — from the entrance post at a park to plaques at the chamber of commerce, the fire department and a community hall.
A spokesman for the state Education Department, JP O’Hare, noted that state regulations “specifically permit the continued use of Native American names and logos if approved by local tribal leaders.” But he said that the Massapequa school district did not reach out to Indigenous leaders or work with a state mascot advisory group to assess its mascot.
He said that “disrespecting entire groups of people is wrong in any context, but especially in our schools, where all students should feel welcome and supported.”
“State and federal courts have upheld the department’s authority to prohibit these mascots,” Mr. O’Hare said. “It is ironic that the federal government now seeks to intervene on an issue that is squarely reserved to the states.”
At least one group that has pushed back on mascot bans across the nation, the Native American Guardians Association, has supported Massapequa’s fight. But a number of other organizations and tribes have pushed for decades for schools to stop using mascots of Native American people.
Rickey Armstrong Sr., who was then the president of the Seneca Nation, said after New York moved to ban the mascots that “names and imagery that mock, degrade and devalue” Native culture had no place in society, and that “the historic decimation of Native people should not be celebrated in any fashion or used as a community rallying cry, especially in the realm of education.”
Massapequa’s board of education has argued that the mascot was not intended to be disrespectful and was meant to celebrate the hamlet’s history. It said in a statement on Tuesday that it was “honored that President Trump has recognized our efforts and brought national attention to our cause.”
“His support is a powerful affirmation of what we’re fighting for,” the board said.
Troy Closson is a Times education reporter focusing on K-12 schools.
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