Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
The Neshaminy School District has spent approximately $500,000 over the past eight years fighting to preserve the “Redskins” name and iconography.
School Board President Steve Pirritano confirmed the total this week. He said the district’s insurance company has covered $115,000 of the legal bills, leaving a tab of $385,000 for taxpayers.
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Neshaminy scored a win recently when a panel of Commonwealth Court judges reversed a 2019 Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) ruling that Neshaminy High School must stop using logos and imagery that “negatively stereotype Native Americans.” The PHRC said the high school could keep using the “Redskins” term with the requirement “educational information is provided to district students to ensure that students do not form the idea that it is acceptable to stereotype any group.”
Pirritano said during the school board meeting this week that it was an “understatement” that the district is “satisfied” with the ruling.
The school board president commended the attorneys for the district.
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“We were never defending only a name. We were defending the district from being labeled as discriminatory,” Pirritano said.
After the PHRC decision and order to stop using the logos and imagery, Neshaminy took issue with the ruling and claimed the change could cost up to $1 million. The district did not fully account for how they got to that number.
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Pirritano reaffirmed the $500,000 was less than district would have had to spend to abide by the PHRC decision.
He added: “No value can be assigned to the reputational harm to our district.”
The Commonwealth Court pointed to problems in the PHRC investigation. One judge wrote there was “only speculation” as to whether any Native American students were harmed.
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Neshaminy’s name traces its roots to the indigenous Lenni-Lenape people’s term nischam-hanne, which means “double stream” and “place where we drink twice.” The Neshaminy Creek runs through the school district in Hulmeville Borough, Langhorne Borough, Lower Southampton Township, and Middletown Township. The Lenni-Lenape tribe were not widely known to dress like the images Neshaminy and students often use in relation to their sports teams.
Neshaminy resident Donna Boyle, who is part Cherokee, has for at least nine years asked the school board to change the name and imagery. In 2013, she filed a complaint that the use of the term, mascot, and related imagery caused distress for her child due to their indigenous heritage.
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The debate over the use of the name and imagery in Neshaminy has gained attention from national and regional press over the past years. In 2014, there was a nationally watched fight over whether the high school newspaper could use the term and also over editorial control.
As school systems and sports teams across the country have dropped Native American-influenced names and mascots over concerns they are racist and derogatory, Neshaminy has stuck with their position. They have claimed the choice decades ago was not intended to be insulting and may even be an honor.
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Pirritano said the district needs time to recover from the pandemic and get students back on track, but he was open to “foster a dialog with the community” over how the district represents itself.
Speaking on behalf of the school board, Pirritano said the discussion needs to cover how Neshaminy can better educate about Native American heritage, whether the district should change its iconography, and other related issues.
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“These conversations need to focus on what we believe as a community and those linkages to the historical and cultural pass that are representative of those who lived in this area before us … It should ultimately be the community to make those decisions, not an agency that has no relationship or knowledge of our area’s relationship or culture,” he said.
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