California becomes first state to ban ‘Redskins’ for public school team names

Via NBC News, California governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Sunday a provision banning schools from using the term “Redskins” as a team name or logo.

This historic bill makes California the first state in the nation to pass legislation restricting the use of the dictionary-defined racial slur all across the state in public schools. It gives schools that use the name – there are four of them in the state – time to phase out its use, the Los Angeles Times reported.

California is the first state to implement such a ban.

Sarah Koligian, superintendent of the Tulare Joint Union High School District, last month estimated the cost of changing the mascot throughout the school would be between $700,000 to $1 million.

“At this point, we have not selected another mascot”.

Brown’s decision to sign the bill resonated well with Oneida Indian Nation representative Ray Halbritter and National Congress of American Indians executive director Jackie Pata.

The NFL’s Washington Redskins have been under fire for years over the name, but owner Dan Snyder has adamantly refused to change the name, saying it was meant to honor Native Americans, not slur them.

The grassroots Change the Mascot campaign, which has been a strong supporter of the legislation, today praised California for its landmark stand against the R-word.

While the origin of the Redskins name is disputed, a number of Native Americans believe that it was once used to describe the bloody scalps of Native Americans sold for bounty.

Sponsored by Democratic Assemblymember Luis Alejo, Assembly Bill 30 easily cleared the state Assembly and Senate, despite objections from those who called it a local-control issue.

In another racially sensitive area, however, Brown vetoed a bill to ban naming public property after Confederate heroes.

“Local governments are laboratories of democracy which, under most circumstances, are quite capable of deciding for themselves which of their buildings and parks should be named, and after whom”.