Earlier this month, students at Sandy Spring Friends School, a private school in Sandy Spring, Md., decided to take a stance on usage of the term “Redskins,” which happens to be the mascot of the local professional football team.
The Upper School student government, which covers grades 9 through 12, elected to ban the usage of the word on campus, including any apparel with the word on it. This marked the conclusion of an eight-month process, which included meetings with diversity specialists and faculty members and an editorial about the word last June. Students found wearing any apparel with the word “Redskins” will be asked to change, although apparel with the team logo is still permitted so long as it doesn’t also feature the name itself.
In a Feb. 12 release announcing the decision, Eduardo Polon, a faculty adviser to the Upper School student government, noted that it wouldn’t require a revision of the school’s current dress code, which bans students from wearing “slogans advocating such practices and symbols of racial, sexual, ethnic or religious slander.”
“Once you’re educated and you know that most Native Americans think it’s offensive, it’s kind of a no-brainer,” said Haley Crim, co-clerk of student government,
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