WISCASSET – Students expressed disatisfaction as they left the Wiscasset High School cafeteria Thursday night after Regional School Unit 12 officials voted narrowly to eliminate the school’s “Redskins” mascot after 62 years.
Board member Ralph Hinton of Alna made a motion to honor the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission’s request that the school change the name because it is offensive to Native Americans.
“It’s our obligation,” Hinton said. “They came to us and asked us to stop using this name — and to continue to use it, we would just be promoting the hurt and the hate.”
Joan Morin, a board member from Whitefield, seconded the motion, saying, “When one human being says to another human being, ‘I don’t like that, it is offensive to me,’ they have the right to expect that the behavior will stop.”
The board made its decision after hearing the opinions of the mascot committee, which supported keeping the mascot.
Committee members insisted their passion for the mascot was not racist — which had been a concern of community members who opposed it.
Wiscasset High School senior Paige Teal, a committee member and president of the Student Council, said, “This has been a really important issue to us. Whatever you vote tonight, there will be issues for us tomorrow in school.”
“I, for one, would love to graduate a Redskin,” she concluded as students nodded in support.
Paul Bisulca, a representative of the Penobscot Nation and a former state legislator, told the audience how much “a simple word can upset so many people.”
“For so long, the Maine Indians have been repressed. . . . So we just kept quiet about things that bothered us.
“I hate to be called ‘chief,’” he said. “Don’t call me ‘chief.’ Same with ‘redskin’ and same with ‘squaw.’“
The school board debated the issue for more than 90 minutes after Thursday’s public comment period, then vote 9-6 to eliminate the name.
It was unclear Friday what will replace Redskins. The mascot committee will take up the issue.
The Maine Indian Tribal State Commission requested in September that the school stop using “Redskins,” saying the word relates to a violent tradition in which European settlers in the 1700s captured and scalped Penobscot Indians.
Before Thursday’s vote, the RSU 12 board was on record saying it had little role to play in determining whether the school kept its longstanding team name and mascot.
In October, board members balked at making a decision and instead authorized administrators at the high school to form the mascot committee with students, parents, teachers and residents.
Then, the school’s faculty got involved. More than half of the teachers signed a letter asking the board to address the issue because students and teachers were sharply divided over whether it should be decided by district or school officials.
Regional School Unit 12 covers Alna, Chelsea, Palermo, Somerville, Westport Island, Whitefield, Windsor and Wiscasset.
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