The “Indians” have been the mascot of Santa Clarita’s Hart High School since 1945, when the school was founded.
But change may be coming on Wednesday, July 14. After months of debate from students, administrators, parents, staff members and Native American advocacy groups, the William S. Hart Union High School District governing board is expected to make a decision to determine the fate of the mascot.
In previous discussions, the school board has leaned toward removing the moniker. School board member Joe Messina has been the only member to support retaining it.
“Based on the last conversation and the last vote count, it was 4-1,” Messina said. “I would imagine it’s probably going to go down around the same lines this time around.”
School board president Cherise Moore said in previous meetings she felt the Indians mascot was offensive and it needed to be retired.
“I have very mixed feelings,” said school board member Linda Storli, who was a teacher at Canyon High before becoming a board member — who has two children who are Hart High graduates and has a stepson who is a teacher at the school.
“The part of me that never wants anyone to feel uncomfortable is up against the part of me that likes tradition,” she said.
Members of the Retire Hart’s Mascot movement and the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians have been attending school board meetings in recent months to lobby for the retirement of the mascot. An online petition has gathered nearly 20,000 signatures calling for the mascot’s removal.
The Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians posted on its website that it supports the removal, as well as the retirement and replacement of race-based mascots, symbols, and images and personality by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations within northern Los Angeles County.
The Tataviam tribe of Native Americans are indigenous people of the Santa Clarita Valley, where Hart High School is located.
A majority of Hart High students and staff members support keeping the Indians mascot, officials said. In surveys in April conducted by the school, 49% of Hart High students voted to keep the Indians mascot, 26% were opposed. In the same survey, 50% of the Hart High staff voted to keep the Indians mascot, while 38% opposed it. The students, 1,343 of the 2,100 enrolled, responded to surveys distributed on campus. Of the school’s approximately 180 staff members, 123 responded online to the survey.
Messina said he sides with members of the community who want to keep the Indians mascot.
“The community as a whole wants to keep it,” Messina said. “The comments are around respect for the warrior, not just because it’s an Indian and just because we’ve always had it. That’s No. 1. No. 2, I’m tired of this ‘cancel culture’ that says it’s gotta go if it offends two people.”
Julia Estrada, leader of the Retire Hart’s Mascot movement said she and her group will continue speaking against the mascot until it’s gone.
“It’s a pretty big day next Wednesday,” she said.
“They need to listen to native voices and to our local native people, the Fernandeño Tataviam tribal summit, who have spoken and blatantly stated that they denounce this mascot,” Estrada said. “And I do think they have an obligation to finally commit to removing the mascot. It’s been brought up about three times in the past 30 years. This is by no means a new issue. I think they have the obligation to commit to retiring it at this next meeting.”
Some supporters of mascots such as “Indians,” “Braves” or “Chiefs” are intended as tributes to Native American culture. But many schools and teams have opted for change in recent years as opposition to such mascots has grown.
Many Native American-themed mascots have been retired by high schools in Southern California:
- The Los Angeles Unified School District voted to remove Native American mascots in 1997;
- Birmingham High School in Van Nuys changed its mascot from the Braves to the Patriots in 1998;
- Alemany High School in Mission Hills, a private, Catholic school which was established in 1956, changed its mascot from the Indians to the Warriors in 2006; and
- In December, the student body at John Burroughs High School in Burbank voted to change its mascot, removing the Indians moniker and opting for the Bears instead.
The NFL team in Washington, D.C., is no longer using a term many deemed offensive for decades as its mascot, opting for the “Washington Football Team” instead for the past two seasons. The team expects to announce a new nickname in the months ahead. However, such pro sports teams as Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians, the National Hockey League’s Chicago Blackhawks and NFL football’s Kansas City Chiefs still maintain Indian-themed nicknames.
The “R-word,” the Washington team’s former nickname, was banned by the state of California for use by public schools. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the law, launched in 2017, which includes the “prohibition of derogatory and discriminatory names or team names or mascots in public schools and prohibition of the use of any derogatory term that singles out the Native American community.”
State legislators in Colorado and Nevada voted last month to bar public schools from adopting Native American mascots, according to The Hill. Washington state passed a similar measure earlier this year; Maine took the same action in 2019. Connecticut and Massachusetts are expected to consider similar initiatives this year.
The debate over such mascots is not new. Efforts to oppose Native American mascots date back to the 1960s. Stanford University became the “Cardinal” back in 1975, dropping the nickname Indians. And a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association in 2005 sparked the organization to call for the retirement of such mascots and team themes, citing ” the harmful effects of racial stereotyping and inaccurate racial portrayals, including the particularly harmful effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social identity development and self-esteem of American Indian young people.”
“We’re seeing this wave of Native American mascots removal on a national level,” Estrada said. “I would love it to continue. I’m a part of a group that’s helping this continue nationwide. It goes back to obligation. We see these states retiring their mascots, and we see local and nearby high schools, like John Burroughs, retiring their Indian mascot. It’s becoming local and it’s becoming very much a nearby problem. There is less of an excuse to not change it.”
Wednesday’s meeting
The Hart Union High School District Governing Board meeting on Wednesday starts at 7 p.m. at the district offices at 21380 Centre Pointe Parkway in Santa Clarita. The district posted this page detailing information and past meetings/discussions on the topic.