School board joins Native American mascot ban effort

SHAWANO — The Shawano School Board will join the Wausau School Board and other boards around Wisconsin in sponsoring a resolution seeking the ban of Indian mascots.

The board voted unanimously Monday to be a co-sponsor of legislation to go to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards at its annual convention in January that would seek to force the 31 school districts who still have such mascots to change them to something less racially offensive. School districts in Madison and Sun Prairie have joined the effort, and school boards for Milwaukee, Green Bay, La Crosse and Eau Claire are scheduled to vote on the issue next week.

Shawano had previously had the Indian as a mascot until 1993, when the board voted to change it to today’s mascot, the hawk. However, 31 other school districts in the state still have Native American mascots.

Tricia Zucker, Wausau School Board president, said that having mascots that degrade or discriminate against indigenous people have been shown through studies to have a detrimental effect on students at those schools.

“Wausau School Board has, traditionally, not submitted resolutions, so this is the first we’re going to do,” said Zucker, who noted that she spoke with WASB representatives on the issue and learned the subject had never been brought forward. “It seemed like an opportune time; actually, it seems decades late but you can’t undo the history.”

Zucker, who is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, said that part of the discussion leading to her board’s unanimous approval of the resolution was bringing in other school districts for co-sponsorship in order to show the issue has strength and merit.

“I embarked on an overly ambitious effort reaching out to other districts,” Zucker said. “It gives me shivers to think that this conversation is actually happening.”

The issue is no longer just one of personal opinion, according to Zucker, and there are studies that show the mascot issue affects Native Americans and non-Native Americans alike. She noted the American Psychological Association called for a ban of native mascots in 2005.

“You’re a powerful co-sponsor, having made this change years ago,” Zucker told the Shawano School Board. “You’re setting an excellent example for the state of Wisconsin.”

Several area residents spoke out in favor of the board supporting the ban. Among them was a former Shawano Indian mascot, Richie Plass, who is a member of both the Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee tribes.

Plass said he was the mascot in winter 1969 after being asked by the principal, basketball coach and athletic director to fill the role.

“They wanted me to dress up and lead the basketball team, and I told them, ‘We don’t do that for show,’” Plass said. “They asked me to take some time and ask my parents and other people.”

Plass said he performed once at a home game, and he received a lot of support from the crowd, applauding and cheering. Then he was asked to do so again at an away game in Kaukauna, where the response was not so supportive.

“As I brought the team out onto the floor, the whole gymnasium started to laugh,” Plass said. “It kind of freaked me out, as I was 16, 17 years old. I stood over by the bleachers.”

It went from bad to worse as the fans shouted at Plass, and children pulled at his costume. He said he specifically remembered being pelted with paper cups and orange and banana peels. Some guys on the top row also spat on him, he said.

“I have been addressing this issue for just over 50 years,” Plass said, noting that he put together a traveling exhibit 15 years ago that included the old mascot on marketing items and other historical materials to help educate schools and communities.

Plass noted that it warmed his heart to see that there is a Native American group in the Shawano schools and that the response from students after a presentation last year was one of warmth, understanding and gratitude.

“It’s time for it to go,” Plass said of the remaining Native American mascots. “I am a standing, living, breathing former mascot who will just say this — we, as Indian people, are given our rights and protections through the United States Constitution. What these other schools and teams are doing, they’re racially discriminating and breaking the law against us. It’s time to change.”

Starlyn Tourtillott, a former school board member with children attending Shawano schools, also urged support, pointing out that being silent on the issue is the same as being complicit.

“We just saw a hate crime occur in our community,” Tourtillott said, referring to the arrest of a Shawano teen accused of vandalizing nearby schools with graffiti that included swastikas and racial slurs. “It’s past time being complicit and saying that it’s some other school district’s issue to deal with. Let’s be a leader. Let’s be brave on this issue.”

Tourtillott noted that 19-20 percent of the district’s student enrollment is Native American.

“As a parent with my children, I’m here to tell you that this is an important issue,” she said. “I don’t want them to walk into an area or an environment where they feel it is hostile to learn.”

Tracy Obermeyer, chairwoman for the district’s Title VII Parent Advisory Committee, said that, although the resolution hadn’t come to her committee’s attention, she believes it would support the board on the issue.

“Removing the negative stereotypes, using our sacred mascots and things like that, is definitely something that paints a wrong picture on who our people are,” Obermeyer said.

Board member Mart Grams, who said at a board meeting two weeks earlier that the district shouldn’t be telling other districts what they should do, changed his stance and threw his support behind co-sponsoring the resolution.

“I talked to 53 Native Americans in the last couple of days. Many gave me the same story you did,” Grams said to the audience. “What really grabbed me were two issues. One was the evidence that it leads to lower learning and lower reading scores, etc. The one that bothered me … was the listing of the 31 schools with mascots, and I would take those as serious, as demeaning.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com