Campus Ejects ‘Braves’ Shirt Sellers

Campus police ejected Birmingham High School booster parents who were attempting to sell “Save the Braves” T-shirts Friday evening in opposition to a Board of Education policy banning Indian mascots.

Calling the school policy a case of “government completely out of control,” parent Frank Arrigo said, “This is stupid.”

Arrigo and another parent, Jack McGrath, were spearheading the effort to sell the shirts and “save the Braves.” They intended to sell the shirts at the “Dad’s Club” booth at the San Fernando Valley campus.

But earlier Friday, Los Angeles Unified School District officials notified the group the district has a right to regulate sales on school property. According to officials, “In this particular instance, allowing the sale of merchandise with a message that directly refutes a policy legally established by the Board of Education legally cannot be permitted.”

After a brief encounter with officers, the activists selling the shirts were forced off campus while the Friday night football game was being played.

The board, at the urging of American Indian activists, voted Sept. 8 to eliminate the name and image of American Indian-themed mascots from all of its campuses.

The logo at Birmingham High School--an American Indian with a headdress--is based on Chief Pontiac, an Ottawa Indian who was considered one of the best organizers of tribes against the invading English during the 1700s and for whom the city of Pontiac, Mich., is named.

“Destroying the name Braves and our logo is rather ironic because they [school district members] claim they are being sensitive to the desires of Native Americans, yet they are destroying a great Native American symbol,” Arrigo, a 1964 Birmingham graduate, said in a recent interview.

Arrigo and others who have formed the Save the Braves Committee said they faxed a letter to Board of Education President Julie Korenstein asking the board to rescind its decision.

The decision to expel the mascot will cost Birmingham $240,000 to paint over the Brave logo now embedded on the gym floor, the track and elsewhere on campus, and to purchase new gym clothes and band uniforms without the Brave logo, Principal Gerald Kleinman said.