Pa. commission to rule on Neshaminy ‘Redskins’ team name

• Aaron Moselle/WHYY
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Aaron Moselle is a general assignment reporter for NewsWorks, filing stories for both web and radio.
  While you can find him at the courthouse or a school funding rally, he also spends a good chunk of his time writing about issues in Northwest Philadelphia, where he was born and raised. (Yes. Mount Airy is part of the city.)
  Before arriving at WHYY in 2010, Aaron was a freelance writer for a collection of community newspapers and alternative weeklies.
  He still can't get over the fact that he can walk to so many sights and sounds from his home base in South Philly.

 Eugene Sonn / WHYY

A mural of the Neshaminy High School mascot, the Redskin.

(Undated) — The Facebook logo for Neshaminy High School’s football team features a helmet stamped with the profile of a Native American warrior and the squad’s decades-old nickname: “Skins.”

Come Monday, a highly anticipated ruling by a state commission could spell the end for the controversial combo.

Four years after it first filed suit, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is expected to decide whether the Neshaminy School District can continue using the word “Redskins” to describe its sports teams. The commission says the term — axed by dozens of other schools across the country — is a racial epithet that discriminates against Native Americans and creates a “hostile educational environment” for students.

“It’s not only racial and insensitive, it’s polarizing,” executive director Chad Dion Lassiter said earlier this year.

The Bucks County district, home to more than 9,400 students, declined to comment, but it has denied the commission’s allegations in the past, calling them “unfounded.”

Either side can appeal the commission’s ruling to Commonwealth Court.

Monday’s decision comes nearly a year after a weeklong public hearing that pitted parents, former students, and teachers against school administrators and district experts, who argued the school’s mascot is rooted in pride, not prejudice.

WHYY is the leading public media station serving the Philadelphia region, including Delaware, South Jersey and Pennsylvania. This story originally appeared on WHYY.org.

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