Amityville school district sues over ban on Native American mascots
Players walk past the Amityville Warriors logo during the Suffolk High School Division III football game between Amityville and Eastport-South Manor held in Amtyville on Sept, 1. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
The Amityville school district has filed a lawsuit against the state Board of Regents seeking to keep the “Warriors” name following the state’s ban on public schools using Native American mascots, names and imagery.
The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of New York on Thursday, said the district has already rebranded its name by retiring any Native American imagery and replacing it. The current “Warriors” logo, which has been in place since 2018, is the letter “A” (for Amityville) in the school colors, which are red and gray and has the word “Warriors” written across it.
The rebranding effort — which the district initiated on its own — started about four years ago and has cost about $1 million.
“It would be illogical and a huge waste of taxpayer dollars to force the district to have to change the already rebranded Warriors name and replace all of these newly purchased items again,” according to the court document.
Since 2018, the district has removed Native American imagery from three gym floors, outdoor turf, and all scoreboards, floor mats, bleachers, awnings, banners and signage. All of these items were replaced with newly purchased items sporting the new logo. The district has no mascot outside of its logo.
The plaintiffs are the Board of Education and Jeannette Santos in her capacity as a board member and a district resident. The suit names the members of the Board of Regents.
The new state rules called for public school systems to have agreed by June that they would comply with the ban, and then to eradicate references to Native American names, mascots and imagery on school property by June 2025.
The state education department and the Board of Regents declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Amityville is among 13 Long Island school districts affected by the ban. The 3,150-student district is the latest to sue, just weeks after the Connetquot, Massapequa, Wantagh and Wyandanch districts filed lawsuits. The court documents contend that the ban was not lawfully enacted, is arbitrary and capricious, and raises constitutional issues. As with the other districts, Amityville is represented by Kleinberg and Weisbord of Carle Place.
The district has taken issue with the state’s ban on the word “Warriors.”
“Fast forward through history, and you have the great warriors of Ancient Rome and Greece, such as the Trojan Warriors and Spartan warriors who came from a warrior society in ancient Greece. Ancient Greek warriors, like Achilles, Hercules, Odysseus, and Perseus, are well known throughout the world, and have inspired countless movies and tv shows, like Xena: The Warrior Princess,” the suit read.
The court documents noted that many names of municipalities, bodies of water and other landmarks statewide are derived from Native American culture, and that the state didn’t provide details when it enacted the ban.
“The Board of Regents issued a sweeping regulation prohibiting any nonexempt use of an Indigenous name, logo, or image, without taking their origin into account." the suit said.
The district argued that an upstate school system — Chenango Valley Central School District — has been allowed to keep the name “because it was not connected with Indigenous Nations or peoples.” read the suit. Chenango Valley's nickname also is Warriors.
“The District has already retired its use of Native American imagery in association with the 'Warriors' name. As such, there is no rational reason why the District should not be able to continue to use the Warriors name. Nor is there any rational reason why the District should have to change the Warriors after having already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars rebranding it.”
With Jim Baumbach
Joie Tyrrell is a Long Island native and covers education for Newsday, where she has worked since 1998.
