Unanimous: SAC council ditches the Ranger
The Ranger will no longer be the mascot of San Antonio College.
A group made up of college community members called the College Council unanimously approved the decision Tuesday after Latino faculty and Mexican American Studies students advocated for more than a year for its removal.
The college will embark on a search for a new mascot, according to a news release from the college.
“This is a historic day,” SAC President Robert Vela said in a prepared statement. “The debate is over and San Antonio College has gone on record as being inclusive, diverse, empowered, decisive, true to its values — and committed to doing the right thing.
“We’ve taken a great leap forward and now we can begin the process of fashioning a new mascot identity that reflects the very best qualities of our SAC community,” he said.
This year, the college conducted a survey and found the majority of respondents supported removing the Ranger as its mascot.
In 1926, the school adopted as its mascot the Texas Ranger, honoring the law enforcement agency that carries a history of brutalizing Mexican Americans, Native Americans and Black people in the 1800s through the early 1900s.
But over the years, the mascot has been renamed or re-imagined several times in an effort to change its association with the agency.
In 2014, the school adopted the Gnome Ranger, calling him a “spirit figure,” whose job was to spread school spirit. Then, after a lukewarm response from students, the school chose Antonio, the Masked Ranger. But after more backlash over the Zorro-like masked bandit, the school dropped “masked” from its name.
The school said Antonio the Ranger was an homage to San Antonio.
Eventually, Latino faculty and Mexican American Studies students organized Somos La Gente, a student activist group, to educate their peers on the mascot’s history.
A project called Refusing to Forget has documented cases in which Texas Rangers, other lawmen and vigilantes executed Mexicans and Mexican Americans. The agency’s practices eventually led to legislative investigations and state reforms.
Earlier this year, Vela signaled he was ready to support the removal of the mascot, a symbol of institutionalized racism for many.
Last month, Vela said a student presentation via Zoom helped him decide that its college council, a 60-member governing body that includes faculty chairs, program directors and leaders from across campus, could be convened for a vote.
San Antonio College is a designated Hispanic Serving Institution and has a student body that is 60 percent Hispanic.