McGILL STUDENTS VOTE TO AXE ‘REDMEN’ SPORTS NICKNAME

Pressure is growing on McGill University to shed its sports teams’ Redmen nickname after students voted 79 per cent in favour of the change in a referendum. The Students’ Society of McGill University said it will continue pressing the university until it “acknowledges the damage that the Redmen name has done, and addresses those damages by, first of all, changing it.” The vote followed a campaign by Indigenous staff and students to drop a name they consider derogatory. The Redmen name, originally written as Red Men, dates to the 1920s. The school says it is a tribute to the team’s red uniforms and possibly founder James McGill’s Celtic origins. “In ancient times, Celts were known as the Red Men because of their hair … our own Red Men were no doubt Celts in honour of James McGill’s Scottish descent,” McGill’s official historian, the late Stanley Frost, is quoted stating. But in the 1950s the name took on a different sense, with men’s and women’s teams colloquially referred to as the “Indians” or the “Squaws.”