Massapequa, NY (AP) – New York discriminates against a school district that refuses to get rid of his mascot of the American native, and could face an investigation by the Ministry of Justice or a loss of risk against federal financing, said President Donald Trump on Friday.
When visiting the Massapequa High School on Long Island, the US Education Minister Linda McMahon said that an investigation of her agency had determined that state education officers had violated the title VI of the Federal Law Act by banning the exploit of mascot from the American indigenous people and logos.
The department’s civil rights office found that the state prohibition is discriminatory, since the names and mascot of other racist or ethnic groups such as the “Dutch” and the “Hugenstraße” are still permitted.
McMahon described Massapequa’s chiefs mascot as an “incredible” representation of the leadership of the American indigenous people when she made the announcement by dozens of students and local officials in the High School High School.
“The Trump government will not be idle if state leaders are trying to remove the history and culture of the American indigenous people,” said the former long -time CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.
McMahon said her department would give the state ten days to sign an agreement that imposes his mascot ban on the American indigenous people and apologizes to the American indigenous people to “delete” their history.
JP O’Hare, a spokesman for the New York educational department, dismissed McMahon’s visit as a “political theater” and said that the school district had a “difficult disadvantage” to its students by refusing to advise their concerns with local tribes.
“As you have told us, these representatives will say that certain names and pictures of the American indigenous people immortalize negative stereotypes and are demonstrably harmful to children,” he said in a statement.
Representatives of the Native American Guardians Association, which expressed support for the maintenance of the chief mascot on Friday, do not speak in spite of the claims of school officials, said Adam Drexler, a resident of Massapequa and MassaSaw Nation.
“You are an American native,” he said, realizing that the group in North Dakota is based. “You have no tribal authority.”
In the meantime, the National Congress of the American Indians, the oldest and largest advocacy representatives of the American indigenous people, confirmed their many years of resistance to the exploit of independent images of the American indigenous people.
“These representations are not a tribute – they are rooted in racism, cultural appropriation and deliberate ignorance,” said the organization in a statement before McMahon.
Trump ordered the Federal Education Department to start an examination of the Massapequa mascot dispute last month, so that the coastal suburb in the enduring debate about the location of the indigenous pictures in American sport became an unlikely flashpoint.
The city is about 64 kilometers east of Manhattan and has been fighting a state mandate for years to retire sports names and mascot of the indigenous people.
The lawsuit, which the prohibition of constitutional reasons in 2023 in question, was rejected by a federal judge at the beginning of this year.
The state educational officials gave the districts until the end of this school year to commit themselves to replace them or to lose educational financing.
Schools could be liberated from the mandate if they have obtained approval from a local American indigenous people, but Massapequa has never obtained such permission, said state officials.
Bruce Blakeman, Executive by Nassau County, an ally who joined McMahon when visiting McMahon, repeated the feelings of residents who retain the mascot. The Massapequa boss should “honor” the inheritance of the city’s American native and they do not “disparage”.
“They try to change our culture and we don’t have them,” said Blakeman.
The city is named after the Massapequa, which were part of the wider Lenape or Delaware, people who lived in the forests in the northeast of the United States and Canada for years before they were decimated by European colonization.
But the indigenous residents in Long Island have referred to Massapequa’s mascot problematic because it has an American man who is wearing a headdress that was typically worn by tribes in the Midwest American, but was not worn in the northeast.
The cheerful mascot also hides Massapequa’s legacy of violence against American indigenous people, which includes the location of a massacre of American indigenous people in the 1600s, according to activists from the American indigenous people.
Massapequa, about 90% white, has long been a conservative bastion that is popular with New York police and firefighters.
Trump visited the city last year to get to the New York police officer and often made visits to Long Island because he changed the Republican.
The comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Hollywoods Baldwin Brothers and the alleged serial killer of Gilgo Beach are also among the remarkable alumes of Massapequa High.
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This story was corrected to remove a reference to the event on Thursday. It took place on Friday.
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Follow Philip Marcelo at Twitter.com/philmarcelo.
