Board faces ‘toxic’ climate over mascot
Killingly officials vote to nix compromise ‘Red Hawks’
After a failed vote to restore the “Redmen,” a high school mascot viewed by many as a racist symbol, the Killingly Board of Education is now searching for a compromise.
Just days before the Killingly High School football team plays a state championship game, the board rescinded “Red Hawks,” the school’s new mascot, at an emotionally charged meeting Wednesday night attended by hundreds of local residents.
“The current climate in this school and this community is toxic and changing the mascot back to the Redmen tonight will only further fuel the rampant vitriol in our town,” testified Kiku Langford McDonald, a Killingly parent who also distributed red
origami cranes before the meeting to encourage healing
At the board meeting, a motion to rescind the “Red Hawks” mascot — which was selected in October — passed with majority Republican support. But the board failed to pass a motion reinstating the Redmen name when one Republican member joined Democrats in opposition and another abstained.
“There is no mascot at this point. Both were defeated tonight,” said Craig Hanford, a Republican and the new chair of the board. He added that a bipartisan subcommittee of board members would be formed to elicit further public discussion on the mascot and find a solution.
“We need to do this to move the town forward,” he said, adding that the school board must “start doing right by the students, by focusing on things like test scores and education.”
In a statement Thursday, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation praised the school board for not reinstating the Redmen, saying, “we are optimistic that this situation can be respectfully resolved.”
Several hundred people packed the Killingly High School auditorium Wednesday night to observe the board meeting and provide more than three hours of public testimony.
Tensions ran high throughout the evening, as some arrived at the high school already in tears and a few verbal altercations broke out between members of opposing sides.
The vast majority of those who spoke, including many of the high school’s teachers and staff, urged school board members to retain the Red Hawks name and put the mascot controversy behind them.
But others called upon the board to restore the Redmen, a position which many of the newly elected Republican board members had made the cornerstone of their campaigns during the November municipal elections.
“I have no racism in my blood,” Carieann LaPointeGrenier, a Killingly High School graduate and parent who supported the Redmen, told the school board. She urged the new members to heed the residents who voted them into office. “They may not be here tonight, but they spoke,” she said.
The school board also heard a presentation from Mark One Wolf Yancey, a representative of the Native American Guardians Association — a controversial group with a stated mission of promoting Native American culture — who had been invited to speak.
Yancey, who lives in Greenwich and said he was Chiricahua Apache, told the board he wanted to provide an “alternative perspective” and argued that the Redmen name should be “elevated” to its “original glory.”
Hoween Flexer, a Democratic member of the board, read a letter from members of the Central Texas chapter of the American Indian Movement, a grassroots Native American activist organization, that questioned Yancey’s stated Native American heritage. “It is widely believed among the Native community that he is not a recognized member of any Native American tribe,” the statement read. “He speaks as a professional on Native votes but has no voice amongst the Native community.”
Voting on the agenda items related to the mascot began at almost 11 p.m. Board members first rescinded a motion, approved by the previous board in June, stating that Killingly Public Schools should not have a mascot that “depicts or refers to another race, individual, custom, or tradition.”
Republican board member Gregory Biggs said he was concerned that the school board had previously come under fire for moving forward with the mascot change too quickly. An attempt from Democratic board member Christopher Viens to postpone the vote on the Killingly mascot until the next board meeting in January did not pass.
“I don’t know that we’re at a point at this time to judge making t hese changes,” said Democratic board member Lydia Rivera-Abrams, who urged the rest of the board to examine their motivations for potentially changing the name back to the Redmen.
“How dare us do this?” Flexer demanded. “We have a football team going into a championship on Saturday!”
The motion to rescind the “Red Hawks” name change passed 5-4, with Republican members supporting the change and Democratic members opposing it. Some of the remaining audience members cheered, while others stormed out.
“It’s a shame that your politics took over your conscience!” one woman screamed at the board members.
Before considering whether to reinstate the Redmen, some board members argued that the school district must do a better job of educating its students about Native American culture and heritage.
“If we are going to have the moniker or mascot of Redmen, we should be the most educated people in the state on Native American history,” said Biggs, a Republican.
Rivera-Abrams said she was frustrated that the board was poised to repeat its past mistakes even after hearing three hours of testimony about the educational and social damage perpetuated by a symbol like Redmen.
“By passing this, we are, here and now, committing a discriminatory act,” warned Viens, a Democrat.
But the final motion to reinstate the Redmen failed to pass, even with a 6-3 Republican majority on the board.
Muscara joined other Republicans Doug Farrow, Norm Ferron and Karen Fremuth in voting in favor of the motion, while Democrats Flexer, RiveraAbrams, and Viens opposed it. Biggs, a Republican, also opposed the motion while Hanford, a Republican, abstained.
At a quarter to midnight, the school board turned to discussing the usual business of the school district.