The Trump administration has renewed its commitment to help restore the "Chiefs" team name and logo to Massapequa High School in New York.
In a statement to the New York Post on Thursday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said, "It is a top priority of this Administration to protect Massapequa, Connetquot, and all Native American groups' right to celebrate and preserve their cultural heritage."
In April, Trump ordered the Education Department to investigate the long-running dispute over the mascot, and Long Island has since become a flash point in the national debate about the use of Native American imagery in U.S. sports.
State education officials have been attempting to discontinue what they deem offensive sports team names and mascots for more than 20 years. The state set a deadline for the end of the 2024-2025 school year to commit to retiring them or risk losing funding.
McMahon in May said the state's order to remove the logos and ban the "Chiefs" name and mascot amounted to a civil rights violation.
Trump weighed in on the controversy in April.
"I agree with the people in Massapequa, Long Island, who are fighting furiously to keep the Massapequa Chiefs logo on their Teams and School," the president wrote. "Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population."
That he got involved "shocked" the president of the Massapequa school board, Kerry Wachter.
"You know, we did get some press in the beginning, New York Post and a couple other outlets, where we asked for President Trump to please get involved. And to our surprise, he actually did. So, yeah, we were very excited to hear him call out the Massapequa Chiefs," Wachter told Newsmax in May.
McMahon on Thursday reasserted that the state of New York is "violating the Civil Rights Act."
Wachter told Newsmax in the spring that changing the name and logo would cost the school district $1 million in rebranding.
"It's in our fields. It's in the floors. It's on the walls. It's everywhere. And it's not just at the schools, you know; it's throughout our town. And we're named Massapequa for the Massapequa Indians who were here before us," Wachter added.
"So, you know, it's disingenuous for them to say that it's, you know, an insult or that we're doing something disparaging."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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