Photo by Martin Austermuhle
The Washington NFL team can subtract another name from the list of high schools it considers “proud” to share its on-field nickname. Last week, the school board in Port Townsend, Wash. voted to drop the name, which is considered by many to be derogatory toward Native Americans.
The move came during a contentious school board meeting on June 24 at which the name was defended by most community members who spoke up during a 90-minute debate over the matter. Port Townsend High School’s use of “Redskins” as the name for its sports teams—football and otherwise—dates back to 1926, a full seven years before an NFL franchise in Boston adopted the name.
As the Port Townsend Leader reports, public opinion at the school board meeting was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the name intact, though ultimately unsuccessful.
“How can we support [the school board]? How can we support a new mascot when all of the people here sit in the stands and cheer on the Redskins?” asked Tyese Logan, a PTHS alumnus and one of those who spoke in favor of retaining the name. “The mascot has never divided us; you’re dividing us.”
Every speaker who opposed the name change received audience applause. More than one person who supported the change was jeered.
Despite the public disapproval, the five-member school board voted unanimously to begin a process of phasing out the name “with honor and dignity.”
The vote followed the completion of a six-month review by a committee appointed last year to study whether or not Port Townsend High School’s sports teams should keep their name. While the panel found a great deal of scholastic and civic pride tied to the nearly nine-decade history of the nickname, it also took note of an increasing number of students and teachers trying to distance themselves from the name. Notably, Port Townsend’s cross-country team has not used the nickname or mascot in several seasons.
“Students who favor retiring the ‘Redskins’ name and changing the mascot believe the mascot name is derogatory and elicits a negative view of Port Townsend by folks outside our community,” the committee wrote. “It seems that despite the school leadership’s best efforts negative connotations to the name continue to be shouted out at school events.”
Perhaps most overwhelmingly, the special committee wrote that it did not find any evidence that keeping a name that some find to be derogatory is not harmful to the school district’s image and its students’ development.
Port Townsend is hardly the first school district to make this change. The Cooperstown, N.Y. school district retired the name in February.
As for the most famous team to use a racial slur for Native Americans as its name, owner Dan Snyder and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell are as entrenched as ever in their belief that the Washington NFL team has no reason to change its name. A poll released last week by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of fans oppose a name change.
But that poll also found that support for the team is not necessarily tied to what it calls itself. Eighty-two percent of those surveyed said that a hypothetical name change would not make much of an impact on their fandom. Perhaps the Port Townsend residents who shouted their way through that school board meeting last week will find the same is true of themselves.
