Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify language around the research.
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating New York’s state education department for its enforcement of a state policy that prohibits the use of Native American imagery in school mascots, in a continued show of force from the agency and one that also challenges a yearslong trend of phasing out logos long called offensive.
The federal Education Department announced on Friday that its office for civil rights would investigate the state agency and the board that oversees it for discrimination after the Massapequa school district refused to eliminate its “Chiefs” mascot at the state’s insistence.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the elimination of the Long Island district’s mascot “eras[es] Native Americans, their rich history, and their deep connection [to] the state.”
But scholars and Native American activists have long pushed back on schools’ use of such images, arguing that they are reductive and harmful to Native American students.
New York has been among several states to pass policies or laws barring the use of the images, after years of national advocacy from organizations like the National Congress of American Indians, the largest nonprofit representing Native nations, which has long tracked and challenged the use of Native American mascots.
But President Donald Trump’s choice to wade into a local debate in support of the district—and call on McMahon in an April 21 social media post to “fight for the people of Massapequa"—is the latest in a broader fight the Trump administration is waging over diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools.
“States in general are being pitted against Trump, especially any of them that have any kind of DEI policies,” said John Kane, who is Mohawk and has long advocated for schools to retire their Native American mascots. “That’s a fight that New York state was going to have, regardless of this.”
The use of Native American mascots has been increasingly challenged—but now there’s pushback
In 2020—after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer prompted a greater focus on systemic racism—there was increased attention to districts’, universities’, and professional sports teams’ use of Native American imagery. The same year, the National Congress of American Indians expanded its push to eliminate mascots to the K-12 level.
More recently, however, there’s been pushback, and the use of such mascots has become a more partisan issue. Conservative school boards have reinstated retired mascots, even over the protests of local Native American families. (Some school boards have similarly retreated in recent years from earlier decisions to retire Confederate school names.)
For Native American students, exposure to Native American mascots reduces self-esteem, their ability to imagine future accomplishments, and belief that Native American communities can make a difference, according to Laurel Davis-Delano, a professor of sociology at Springfield College who has studied the effect of such imagery on students.
For non-Native people, research shows that mascots are associated with negative thoughts and stereotypes about Native Americans. Those who support mascots are more likely to hold prejudicial attitudes about Native Americans, and support for the mascots is associated with less support for Native American rights, according to that research.
“Essentially, whatever people learn from Native mascots, it’s definitely not increasing their support for Native people,” Davis-Delano said, “because of the link to greater prejudice, greater stereotyping, and less support for policies that are helpful.”
As of 2024, nearly 2,000 schools still used Native American imagery, according to National Congress of American Indians data. A number of states have passed legislation or policies to end its use.
In New York, the federal investigation comes after a longer fight between the district and the state Board of Regents, which oversees the state education department. The board passed a policy in 2022 that barred the use of Native American imagery in school districts’ logos and mascots unless districts had permission from local tribes.
Thirteen districts were affected by the policy, according to the Massapequa Post. At least one district got tribal permission given the district’s location in Allegany territory and its large percentages of Native American students and staff.
Massapequa—which tops the “M” with a headdress and uses a depiction of a Native American chief’s face as a logo, and sells apparel with the imagery—and three other Long Island districts sued over the policy. A federal judge dismissed the case in March, saying the districts did not provide enough evidence that the policy infringed upon their First Amendment rights.
Kane pushed for a state-level policy after he lobbied school districts individually—including his alma mater in Cambridge, N.Y.—to retire Native American mascots. He saw how volatile the school board fights could become, and felt a statewide mandate was the most effective approach.
The mascots rely on outdated, white-washed stereotypes and degrade Native Americans, Kane said.
Massapequa’s logo, for instance, depicts a headdress that draws lineage to the Plains and the West. It’s not one that members of tribes in the New York region would have worn, Kane said.
“I think it casts us as a relic of the past,” he said. “It casts us as violent people and oftentimes primitive people. It doesn’t acknowledge the fact that we’re still here.”
Trump’s administration is elevating the challenges to the federal level
Despite the judge’s ruling, the Native American Guardians Association—an organization that has some Native members and supports the continued use of Native American mascots—filed a complaint with the Education Department’s civil rights office, arguing that the state education department is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs.
Preserving the mascot “is not only a matter of cultural dignity but a fundamental civil right for all students,” Frank Blackcloud, the association’s vice president, said in an Education Department press release about the investigation.
The Massapequa school board’s president also applauded the Education Department’s decision to investigate.
On Monday, Trump posed in the White House for a photo with Massapequa apparel, with the warhead logo. In his April 21 post about Massapequa, he said that changing 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,” Trump continued. “It has become the School’s identity and, what could be wrong with using the name, ‘Chief’?”
But local tribes have not consented to the mascot’s use.
JP O’Hare, a spokesperson for the state education department, said the agency had encouraged the district to consult with local tribal representatives, and provided comments from two local tribes—Unkechaug Indian Nation and Shinnecock Indian Nation—that disagreed with the use of the imagery.
He added that the federal investigation—about which the state education department had not yet received any information on Monday—is “inconsistent with Secretary McMahon’s March 20, 2025 statement that she is ‘sending education back to the states where it so rightly belongs.’”
“The use of stereotype costumes, names and cartoonish imagery dehumanize native people and our traditions,” Josephine Smith, director of cultural resources for Shinnecock Indian Nation, said in a statement. “We are a living people with living, evolving traditions, we are not your mascots.”
