A delegation of about 300 Wisconsin school board members overwhelmingly rejected a proposed measure to ban all Native American mascots.
The Wisconsin Association of School Boards rejected the measure, which would have banned the use of Native American nicknames, mascots and logos, by a vote of 218 to 101.
A delegation of about 300 Wisconsin school board members overwhelmingly rejected a proposed measure to ban all Native American mascots.
The Wisconsin Association of School Boards rejected the measure, which would have banned the use of Native American nicknames, mascots and logos, by a vote of 218 to 101.
According to Madison365.com, there are currently about 30 Wisconsin school districts that use Native American nicknames and mascots.
Wausau School Board president Tricia Zunker, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, started the push to ban the use of Native American mascots, symbols and imagery.
The resolution argued that having a Native American mascot “undermines the ability of the Native American Tribal Nations to portray respectful and accurate images of their history, culture, government, sovereignty, customs and traditions.”
The Madison and Sun Prairie school districts signed on to the petition back in August.
Milwaukee Public Schools board president Larry Miller and Vice President Tony Baez were both in favor of the measure.
"Wisconsin has reached a point where we have to do away with these vestiges of anti-Native American thinking," Baez, who likened the controversy to that surrounding the use of the Confederate flag in the south, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel back in August. "As school boards, we have to do away with these symbols of what has been culturally an overtaking and general dismissing of Native Americans," he said.
