Good Morning Everybody,
Below is the letter of endorsement from Religious Americans Against 'Indian' Nicknames and Logos! The superintendent, school board, and trustees have received 5 formal letters of support so far from national advocacy groups, indigenous organizations, tribes, and health experts. I am expecting over 10 more letters to be sent in the upcoming weeks, all voiced by Native Americans.
I ask that you continue to spread the word, educate your neighbors, and persist through adversity to ensure our education system and municipality welcome diversity, and generate a new era of equity and inclusion for all.
Change will happen. Do not lose hope. I have a plan.
~Sincerely,
Daniel Ehrenpreis
TO: Members of the Board of Education of Mahopac Central School District
Leslie Mancuso, President mancusol@mahopac.org
Michael Mongon, Vice President mongonm@mahopac.org
David Furfaro, Trustee furfarod@mahopac.org
Lawrence Keane, Trustee keanel@mahopac.org
Lucy Massafra, Trustee massafral@mahopac.org
Ray McDonough, Trustee mcdonoughr@mahopac.org
Mark O'Connor, Trustee oconnorm@mahopac.org
Michael Simone, Trustee simonem@mahopac.org
Adam Savino, Trustee savinoa@mahopac.org
CC: Mahopac District Superintendent Anthony DiCarlo dicarloa@mahopac.org
Daniel Ehrenpreis dehrenp1@jhu.edu
DATE: January 11, 2020
FROM: Harvey S. Gunderson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, President and Co-Founder, Religious Americans Against ‘Indian’ Nicknames & Logos (RAAINL)
SUBJECT: Ending interscholastic racial discrimination, interscholastic racial stereotyping and interscholastic racial bullying at Mahopac Central School District
Dear members of the Mahopac Central School District Board of Education:
Our Civil Rights organization, Religious Americans Against 'Indian' Nicknames & Logos (RAAINL) joins with over 117 other American Indian, educational, psychological, sociological, civil rights and religious organizations in asking the Board of Education of Mahopac Central School District to eliminate race from your athletic identity policy. It is educationally unsound, divisive, and a violation of several of your own current policies to use the race-based athletic identity of 'Indians'.
The Mahopac Board of Education has two policies that explicitly involve race, and these two policies conflict with one another. The first policy is your non-discrimination policy which says that you do not discriminate based on race. Your second policy involving race is your athletic identity policy targeting American Indians, wherein your athletic teams are identified by the race-based identity of 'Indians’.
Your race-based athletic identity policy violates your own nondiscrimination policy because unrefuted peer-reviewed research shows that a race-based athletic identity harmfully discriminates against American Indian students but also harmfully discriminates against all other racial minority students. Research of Dr. Stephanie Fryberg et al. has showed that exposure to race-based athletic identities lowers the self-esteem and has other negative psychological effects on American Indian students while simultaneously artificially ‘boosting’ the self-esteem of European-American students. A policy specifically based on race targeting American Indians which BENEFITS the racial MAJORITY but HARMS the targeted racial MINORITY is the very definition of “harmful discrimination based on race”.
Second, in addition to a nondiscrimination policy, most school districts have a policy to avoid racial stereotyping. The unrefuted research of Dr. Chu Kim-Prieto et al. has determined that exposure to race-based athletic identities increases receptivity to stereotypes about ALL OTHER RACIAL MINORITIES. This is a second reason for why it’s critical that you FIND A BASIS OTHER THAN RACE to use as your athletic identity. The fact that research shows that a race-based athletic policy increases receptivity to stereotyping of OTHER RACIAL MINORITIES means that your race-based policy not only HARMFULLY DISCRIMINATES AGAINST AMERICAN INDIANS but also HARMS ALL OTHER RACIAL MINORITIES.
In addition to discrimination and stereotyping policies, most school districts also have an anti-bullying policy. Your District presumably has such a policy. It’s important that you recognize that your school’s race-based athletic policy also violates your own anti-bullying policy because it’s widely recognized among educators that use of an 'Indians' athletic identity is a form of "racial bullying".
Accordingly, your race-based athletic policy violates three very important Mahopac Central School District policies:
(1) your nondiscrimination policy,
(2) your policy against racial stereotyping, and
(3) your anti-bullying policy.
The importance you give these policies is reflected in your website stating: “New York State’s Dignity for All Students Act (The Dignity Act) seeks to provide the State’s public elementary and secondary school students with a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment, and bullying on school property, a school bus and/or at a school function.”
VERY IMPORTANTLY, the aforementioned research shows that it’s not only American Indian and other minority students enrolled at YOUR Mahopac Central School District who are being harmed but also AMERICAN INDIAN AND OTHER RACIAL MINORITY STUDENTS ENROLLED IN EVERY OTHER SCHOOL DISTRICT THAT YOU COMPETE AGAINST in athletics. That’s why we call your practice of using a race-based athletic identity (1) “interscholastic discrimination”, (2) “interscholastic stereotyping” and (3) “interscholastic racial bullying”.
I’ve been involved since 2002 as a civil rights activist to eliminate race-based athletic identities at the high school, college and professional level. During those 18 years, I’ve dealt with or followed hundreds of schools and read over 5,000 news articles about this issue. During that time, I periodically encounter school board members who try to avoid dealing with the reality that their race-based policy is discriminatory and promotes stereotyping and bullying. They often say, "Our School Board has more important things to deal with." I ask such board members to list items they deem so important that they can’t also simultaneously address ongoing harmful racial discrimination against minority students, ongoing stereotyping of minority students, and ongoing racial bullying of minority students.
If a board member responds, it’s usually a list of items that benefit or impact the White students in their school district (often as well as minority students). The board member in essence is saying "These issues that impact our White students are of greater importance to me than racial discrimination, stereotyping and bullying because those other issues only impact the minority students." Sadly, such a statement in itself implies the board member believes that “only issues that involve and positively impact White students really matter enough to merit our time and attention”, and implies that race-based matters that directly negatively impact racial minority students are comparatively unimportant. That demonstrates a racist and/or discriminatory attitude on the part of that school board member.
I’ve yet to encounter a governmental entity that’s so incompetent that they’re incapable of dealing with more than one issue at a time. A school board member who says that "We can't deal with harmful discrimination based on race with our athletic identity because we have other more important matters to deal with" is basically admitting that he or she thinks that their school board is so incompetent that they can’t deal with several issues at the same time. In reality, it’s a “refusal” to deal with (or to delay dealing with) matters that harm minority students --- which indicates a very racist attitude.
I like to ask school board members who believe that using a race-based athletic identity is unimportant, "Can you remember anywhere in our Nation's history parallel to what your School District is going through? Can you think of a time in history when American school boards had a race-based policy targeting a specific racial minority group?" I then remind them of school districts named Topeka, Little Rock, Birmingham and Montgomery.
Other than it being (1) a different protected minority group being targeted and (2) a different area of school policy, they’re virtually identical. Both involve an official school board policy … that’s based on race … that targets a specified racial minority group … where research showed that that the race-based policy was psychologically harmful to the targeted minority students. One involves attendance policy, and the other involves athletics policy. One involves African Americans, and the other involves American Indians. Other than those two substitutions, the concept is the same: a school board decided to base a school policy on race and to target a specific minority group with that race-based policy. In both cases, psychological research showed that the race-based policy psychologically harms students of the targeted minority race.
You’ll likely recall that race-based school policies didn't work out well for the Topeka, Little Rock, Montgomery or Birmingham school districts during the last century. And it’s not working well now, over fifty years later in 2020, for school boards like yours that still cling to a race-based school policy.
I like to say (sarcastically), "So you’re telling me that your School Board in the year 2020 actually still has a School Board policy based on race? And that policy targets a protected minority group? And there’s unrefuted research showing that the race-based school policy psychologically harms the targeted minority students as well as all other racial minority students? Wow! And you’re also telling me that unrefuted research also shows that your race-based school policy psychologically harms minority students attending not only YOUR school but also minority students attending EVERY school district your high school competes against in athletics? Wow! What could POSSIBLY go wrong with an amazing policy like that?"
Having observed hundreds of school districts during the last 18 years, I’ve noticed common patterns. One is that administrators and school board members are often afraid to address this matter because of fear of the change being controversial. Administrators and/or school board members often then try to “ignore” the issue with the hope that the issue will “go away” if they ignore it or delay action. The implied attitude is “Just go away and leave us alone”. Sometimes that approach works … for a short while … but then the issue will be brought up again … perhaps by the same person or group … or by a different person or group. But the matter of using race for an athletic identity will ALWAYS return as an issue … again and again … and again and again … more and more frequently … until the School Board eventually acts to eliminate the race-based athletic identity. And this will happen in Mahopac as well. I guarantee it!
The sad thing is that board members often don’t realize that their refusal to deal with this racial matter today simply prolongs the agony and makes it more difficult for their school and community. It’s inevitable that race will be eliminated from EVERY athletic identity in EVERY public school in the United States. It’s only a matter of “when” for any specific school. If the current Board doesn’t end the use of race for an athletic identity, then a subsequent School Board will be forced to AGAIN address the issue which should have been addressed by the PREVIOUS Board. The fact that this issue will be brought up with increasing frequency at your Mahopac Central School District should cause your current Administrators to say, “Let’s address this now and get it over with once and for all instead of our school and community enduring this controversy repeatedly. We know it’s inevitable that we’re going to have to change our athletic identity eventually, so dealing with the matter sooner rather than later is better for both our students, our school and our community. Besides, it’s the educationally sound thing to do.”
Why don’t school board members realize this issue won’t go away until they eliminate race from their athletic identity? Usually it’s because board members are very uninformed about the issue. They have little contact with American Indian educators and little exposure to matters of concern to American Indians. Board members typically don’t realize that the body of educational and psychological research is growing every year that reconfirms the harmfulness of race-based athletic identities. They don’t realize that there are over 117 organizations working to eliminate race-based athletic identities in schools. This includes almost every major credible American Indian, educational, psychological, sociological, counseling, civil rights and religious organization. In contrast, no credible organization advocates for retaining these identities. (There is a group that tries to pass itself off as such, but no one whom I respect views the group as even slightly credible.)
Because school administrators and board members often resist having the matter brought to their attention, they often look for someone to “blame” for being put into an awkward and controversial situation. Sadly, they often “blame” the person or organization who brought the matter to their attention by requesting change. But the “fault” lies with their School Board predecessors who served on the School Board typically during the first half of the last century when they initially decided it would be a “great idea” to use race as the basis for the Mahopac high school’s athletic identity,.
During that time when interscholastic athletics was a new concept, school boards typically chose athletic identities with the idea that the identity should give the impression that the team was strong, tough, fierce and intimidating to opposing teams. Most school boards chose scary and intimidating high school athletic team names based on a predatory bird (eagles, falcons, hawks), a fierce mammal (tigers, lions, bears, panthers, wildcats, cougars, bobcats), a scary ancient war-like occupation (warriors, knights, Trojans, Vikings, raiders, Spartans, pirates), a scary mythical or supernatural being (dragons, devils), a terrifying natural phenomena (hurricanes, tornadoes, thunder, storm), etc.
While other school boards based their athletic identities on the many non-racial options available to intimidate their athletic adversaries, your predecessors on the Mahopac Board of Education decided to use race (i.e., ‘Indians’) as the basis for your team’s identity. During that earlier era of “cowboy and Indian movies” during the first half of the last Century when school districts were establishing interscholastic athletic programs and choosing team identities, the name of ‘Indians’ was viewed as a fierce and scary team name that would intimidate opposing teams just as did predatory birds, fierce mammals, scary ancient war-like occupations, scary mythical or supernatural beings, and terrifying natural phenomena. During that era of extreme racial insensitivity toward American Indians during the first half of the Twentieth Century, those Board members didn’t realize they were creating a future problem for you, a successor Board member, by deciding to use race as the basis for the team identity.
Looking back with the benefit of hindsight from our current position in 2020, it’s clear that Mahopac Board members in the early 20th Century made a mistake by deciding to use race as an athletic identity. When someone approaches you now to ask you to eliminate race from your school’s athletic identity, understand that it’s not “their fault” that you’re being asked to address this matter. In fact, it shouldn’t even be necessary for someone to request the change because you as the decision-makers responsible for students and education in the District should take the initiative and make the change on your own. Members of the Board should initiate the process rather than forcing a person or group to come forward to potentially be demonized as so often happens in communities when a request for change comes from outside the Board. I’ve seen many American Indian families (and others) forced to leave their community because they were demonized for asking the school board to stop using race as an athletic identity. Please don’t put people though this in your District. It’s time for you as individual Board members to demonstrate leadership on this issue and to move forward in a positive way.
In that regard, how your community navigates its way to a successful change is largely up to you. You can manage the process to minimize the chances of extreme controversy, or you can do it in a way that’s likely to prolong agony and tear your community apart. I want to help you design a path forward that will more likely enable positive change that most in your community can accept. And it’s in that spirit that I write this letter, to try to help you avoid potential pitfalls for your school and community.
The approach with the best chance of getting your community to take a healthy path is to consider all relevant evidence bearing on a Board decision to replace the race-based approach. The key word here is “evidence”. Most school boards take pride in their use of “evidence-based decision making” or “research-based decision making”. Particularly, decisions should be made based on the best and most complete information available.
Most community members can accept a decision that’s transparent and from fact-based “evidence”, not flippantly-generated “opinions” based on nothing more than familiarity and comfortableness with past race-based practices. The research base is vast and growing, confirming and reconfirming that race-based athletic identities are educationally unsound, divisive, don’t allow students to have fun with their athletic identity because vigilance is needed to monitor student behavior to prevent inappropriate signs, cheers, etc. Young people especially understand why using race is so divisive and inappropriate. Educators and administrators usually understand this as well. But it’s only the members of the Board that can make the change, which is why leadership and understanding from each of you is so crucial.
In conclusion, we and over 117 other organizations encourage you to immediately start the process to eliminate race from your policy in the interest of helping everyone including:
· all current and future American Indian students attending both your school and all competing schools and their families, (because research determined that American Indians suffer a decrease in self-esteem and other psychological harm by exposure to race-based athletic identities targeting American Indians)
· all current and future students of other racial minorities attending your school and all competing schools and their families, (because research determined that exposure to race-based athletic identities targeting American Indians increases receptivity to stereotyping of other racial minorities)
· all current and future non-minority students attending your school and all competing schools and their families, (so they aren’t miseducated to believe that racial stereotyping is acceptable, miseducating them for a diverse workplace following graduation)
· current and future Mahopac administrators, (so they don’t have to deal with an issue often viewed as a ‘hot potato’ for administrators because they fear retaliation from community members if they were to communicate their honest education-based views regarding this issue)
· current and future Mahopac teachers and other staff, (because most teachers typically realize that a race-based athletic identity is educationally unsound)
· future Mahopac School Board members (so they don’t have to deal with an issue because you failed to end what otherwise will be a returning and never-ending controversy),
· current and future school board members at the New York school districts that don’t use a race-based athletic identity, (because it’s unfair to them that in spite of their efforts to protect their own minority students from racial discrimination, other school boards including yours use race for their athletic identity policy and victimize all minority students through interscholastic racial discrimination, stereotyping and bullying)
· current and future school board members of the other New York school districts still using a race-based athletic identity, (because your example of educational leadership can encourage and enable them to follow your lead and eliminate race from their own athletic identity policy)
· all current and future citizens of New York. (because as Doug Chickering, a former Executive Director of another state athletic association said, eliminating ‘Indian’ athletic identities is “the right thing to do” and “now is the time to act”)
We named our Civil Rights organization “Religious Americans Against ‘Indian’ Nicknames & Logos” (RAAINL) because we believe this is a moral and ethical issue. We believe a race-based policy that harms innocent children violates the principles inherent in every major religion. Many religious organizations and national church denominations have advocated for change. We believe that regardless of a person’s sense of religion or spirituality, using a race-based athletic identity is an indefensible moral and ethical matter. Whatever your individual sense of spirituality may be, please consider how this matter is a moral and ethical issue important to you.
Given that there are at least 117 American Indian, educational, psychological, sociological, civil rights and religious organizations with adopted resolutions opposing race-based athletic identities, especially in schools where students are at the critical stage of life where they are dealing with matters of identity formation, how can a responsible adult allow continuation of a policy that harms innocent children and miseducates all students? How does one defend discrimination, stereotyping and racial bullying? Especially how does one justify knowingly continuing a discriminatory practice that promotes stereotyping and bullying?
Your website states that “One or more employees in every school building has been designated as a Dignity Act Coordinator and trained in methods to respond to human relations in the areas of race …” Your website lists 27 “Dignity Act Coordinators”. I ask that a copy of this letter be sent to each of the 27 Dignity Act Coordinators to help them understand the harm that arises from the School District’s use of race for an athletic policy, and also to assist them in understanding why they, while serving in the role of a Dignity Act Coordinator, should be pushing from within the School District to encourage the Administration and Board of Education to replace the ‘Indians’ athletic identity.
To you as School Board members, I thank you for your commitments as reflected on the District website to education, to Civil Rights, and to opposing discrimination, stereotyping and bullying. It’s now time for you to make the required changes and end the interscholastic discrimination, interscholastic stereotyping and interscholastic racial bullying that is harming minority students enrolled in every New York school district across the entire state that may encounter your teams in conference, nonconference, tournament, playoff and championship competition..
Please contact me if you have questions or need clarification. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Harvey S. Gunderson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, President and Co-Founder,
Religious Americans Against ‘Indian’ Nicknames & Logos (RAAINL)
Email: gunderso@triwest.net