Motion filed in mascot dispute
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WEST HARTFORD — Another round of legal proceedings flared up Thursday and Friday after the two residents who filed an 11th-hour lawsuit seeking to block the West Hartford Board of Education from adopting new mascots at its two public high schools filed another motion seeking a temporary injunction barring the schools from moving forward with the new monikers until a virtual hearing is held on July 7.
The school board on Tuesday evening voted to change the mascots at Hall and Conard high schools from the Warriors and Chieftains to the Titans and Red Wolves, respectively.
In February, the school board voted to retire the Warriors and Chieftains mascots at the end of the year. For years, the mascots had come under scrutiny over whether they were culturally insensitive. The logos that included Native American imagery at both schools were scrapped in 2015, though the names had been allowed to continue until the vote in February.
Committees — composed of students, faculty, coaches and parents, among others — were established at both high schools to come up with new mascots, which were then presented to the school board by Hall Principal Dan Zittoun and Conard Principal Jamahl Hines on Tuesday night.
On Monday, Scott Zweig, an attorney who has been a vocal opponent to changing the mascots, filed a lawsuit along with resident Mary Mcgowan seeking to enjoin the school board from voting on the matter.
The lawsuit, which names the West Hartford Board of Education, West Hartford Public Schools, Superintendent of Schools Tom Moore and Assistant Superintendent for Administration Andrew Morrow as
defendants, alleges the school board violated “policy, law and due process” when it voted to end the use of the mascots.
A Superior Court judge in Hartford on Tuesday did not issue a temporary injunction but instead scheduled a virtual hearing on the matter for July 7.
The judge’s order did not contain any language preventing the school board from moving forward.
After a half-hour executive session on Tuesday evening, the school board proceeded with its votes on the mascots, with Chairperson Dr. Lorna Thomas-farquharson saying that the suit was “unlikely to succeed.”
“I am aware of no court order or any other legal reason prohibiting us from proceeding to a vote,” Thomas-farquharson said.
Zweig and Mcgowan on Thursday filed another motion for a temporary injunction — without the involvement of the school board or other defendants — seeking to keep “the status quo” until the July 7 hearing, claiming that the school board “cannot be trusted to act in the face of the Court’s order.”
In addition, the final day of school in West Hartford is June 17, Zweig and Mcgowan noted, three weeks before the July 7 hearing.
“If the Respondents are permitted to begin repainting the gymnasium floors and football field end zones and replace signage and other paraphernalia at either school, the Petitioners (and the public) will suffer irreparable harm,” the motion says.
Zweig and Mcgowan also argue in their motion that it would be “impractical and costly to revert” to the Chieftains and Warriors if they were successful in their efforts to enjoin the mascot change.
The school board and district administrators, through their attorney James Healy of Cowdery & Murphy, filed a response to the most recent motion, calling the latest effort to keep the school district and its administrators from performing their duties “astonishing and extraordinary.”
“This case does not present anything that approaches the emergent matters that would warrant even considering ex parte injunctive relief, certainly against a municipal actor,” the response says.
The defendants also called into question Healy and Mcgowan’s standing to even file a lawsuit, as well as seeking judicial relief in a matter that is purely within the purview of the school board.
“Although the plaintiffs may disagree with that decision, their remedy is not at the courthouse, and certainly not in the form of ex parte injunctive relief,” the response says.
The response also said that a motion to dismiss Zweig and Mcgowan’s initial lawsuit would be filed before the July 7 hearing.
West Hartford Corporation Counsel Dallas Dodge weighed in with a statement.
“Attorney Zweig’s suggestion that the Board of Education acted in defiance of a court order is completely untrue,” Dodge said. “The Board made its decision to discontinue the use of the Chieftain and Warrior mascots in February, yet Attorney Zweig chose to wait four months to file an 11th-hour lawsuit — a lawsuit that he served on the Board just seven hours before new names were to be approved. The Board has filed a response to Attorney Zweig’s application for an ex parte temporary injunction and will continue to object to the issuance of such relief in the strongest terms.”
In an interview, Dodge said the lawsuit “is disrespectful to the students, the teachers, the coaches, the parents who actively participated in the process to come up with new names.”
Dodge noted that Zweig was a member of the committee at Hall High School charged with coming up with a new mascot, yet waited until the day before the school board was to vote on the new mascots before filing a lawsuit.
Furthermore, Dodge said it was hypocritical for Zweig to say the cost of changing back the mascots would be prohibitive, but then have the school district pay attorneys to defend against his lawsuit.
Dodge said he expects the court to issue a ruling on the most recent matter, either for or against the temporary injunction, or even calling the parties together for a hearing.
“It’s an extraordinary remedy,” Dodge said of the request for an ex parte injunction.
The latest legal salvo is part of what has often been a contentious process that a number of school districts have engaged in concerning high school mascots and logos with Native American names and/ or images.
In addition to West Hartford, Farmington, Watertown, Glastonbury, Newington and Manchester have in recent years jettisoned mascots deemed insensitive to Native Americans.
In those communities and West Hartford, residents’ opinions split over whether social justice demands ending the use of names that originated decades ago in a less culturally sensitive era, or whether long-established history, community pride and alumni unity would be undermined by doing away with them.