Identifying potentially problematic names of mascots and “canceling” them has been all the rage in the past decade or so.
The NFL’s Washington Redskins were one of the first teams to go back in 2020, briefly switching to the Washington Football Team before landing on the Washington Commanders. At the end of the 2021 season, the MLB’s Cleveland Indians also opted to change their name, dropping the Native American mascot and instead calling themselves the Guardians.
Teams like the Atlanta Braves and the Kansas City Chiefs have mostly been able to avoid the pressure, or have ignored or shot down the idea of rebranding when it’s been brought to their attention.
That being said, those names and many others have long been criticized for being potentially controversial nature, and when all of the other “canceling” went down back in 2020, the Redskins and the Indians went along with it. But after that influx of pressure to rename and rebrand, the conversations around the problematic names lost steam… that is until recently, when Massapequa High School in Long Island was pressured to drop their “Chiefs” team name.
It all stemmed from a 2023 ruling by New York’s Department of Education, which stated that all schools in the state with Native American team mascots needed to rebrand. The Massapequa school and community were outraged, and the School Board – along with other towns in the state affected by the ruling – filed lawsuits against the NY DOE. They cited that the process of rebranding (removing and replacing) could cost the school upwards of $1 million.
And when President Donald Trump got word that the Long Island high school was being forced to rebrand away from their longtime Native American team name, he called upon Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to help reverse the state’s decision in a post that was sent out using his Truth Social account:
“I agree with the people in Massapequa, Long Island, who are fighting furiously to keep the Massapequa Chiefs logo on their teams and school. Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population. The School Board, and virtually everyone in the area, are demanding the name be kept. It has become the School’s identity and, what could be wrong with using the name, ‘Chief’?”
President Trump then likened the situation to an example in the professional leagues. Specifically, the POTUS brought up the Kansas City Chiefs, who have occasionally been the target of pressure to change their branding, yet have never gone through with actually changing.
Donald Trump basically argued that if the team led by Patrick Mahomes in the NFL isn’t backing away from their name, the Long Island high school shouldn’t have to either:
“I don’t see the Kansas City Chiefs changing their name anytime soon! By copy of this TRUTH, I am asking my highly capable Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, to fight for the people of Massapequa on this very important issue. LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!”
Last year, the students put up a big mural on the side of building near their high school’s campus, despite the ban from the state:
