Mascot Bill May Snare Normans, Saxons Too

To John O’Brien, principal of Torrance High, his school has “a harmless nickname”: the Tartars.

The name, chosen almost 80 years ago, mostly for its alliteration quotient, refers to the Turkic and Mongolian peoples who invaded Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. The fact that Tartars are a people long gone, O’Brien said, is an added bonus. “It doesn’t create big issues.”

At least, not yet.

If Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg has her way, there might be no Tartars--or, for that matter, Vikings, Romans or Moors--left in California.

A bill sponsored by Goldberg--prompted by a long-standing debate about team names and mascots associated with Native Americans--would allow the State Board of Education or the California Postsecondary Education Commission to ban any public school team name, mascot or nickname they deem derogatory or discriminatory against a race, ethnicity, nationality or tribal group.

And though it may be unlikely that the board would toss out the Tartars, news of the bill last week took many a Norman and Saxon by surprise.

“Geez,” said Robert Hinojosa, principal of Huntington Park High School, about the possibility that his Normans might have to go the way of, well, the Normans. “I’m an ethnic minority, and I would not want to slur or slander people. But at some point, where do we draw our lines?”

Michael Leininger, principal of La Canada High School, said the only problem he’s ever heard concerning the school’s team name is that some people don’t know what a Spartan is.

“It was a warrior,” he said. “But it was also ... just like Californians: people who lived in a certain state in ancient times.”

Indeed, Sparta, the Greek city-state renowned for its militaristic might, reached the height of its power in the 6th century BC and disappeared a few hundred years later.

Today, examples abound of cultures that vanished long ago, only to be resurrected in the 20th century as logos on school stationery and football helmets. At the high school level alone, there are the Alhambra Moors, the Beverly Hills Normans, the Loara Saxons in Anaheim--and too many Spartans and Vikings to count.

But if Goldberg, a Los Angeles Democrat, had her choice in the matter, there would be no human mascots whatsoever.

“My own personal view is that there are too many animals, symbols and colors that won’t offend anybody,” she said. “I would always err on the side of caution.”

Under the provisions of the bill, anyone finding the mascot of a California public school offensive may complain to one of two state boards. Those boards may add the name to a list of banned mascots or let it be if, for example, they decide that a Gaucho is not offensive and its portrayal not demeaning.

The boards, Goldberg said, “are sensitive to a multicultural and multiethnic society. If they felt [a team name] rose to the level of degradation, I would imagine they would add them to the list.”

Schools with team names that allude to Native Americans have long struggled to balance school tradition with cultural sensitivity. Many principals say they have watched colleagues debate the merits of names such as Braves and Redskins, retool cartoonish or fierce logos and sometimes rename their teams altogether.

Those principals felt a small measure of relief that their own team names escaped dispute. But yet, there are hundreds of elementary schools, high schools and colleges that may soon confront the kind of controversy more associated with the Sioux than the Scots.

Torrance Principal O’Brien said the names of ancient cultures used to be a “safe bet. In our district, we have the South High Spartans and the North High Saxons. Nowadays, no matter what name you pick, it’s very challenging.”

The worst slur against the Tartars, he observed, is not even a racial one. Fish jokes are common as opponents threaten to “make Tartar sauce.”

Though many team names are chosen for obvious reasons--consider the Sultana Sultans or the John F. Kennedy High School Fighting Irish--often, the historical or geographical reasons for team names have become obscured by the passage of time and shifting Southland demographics.

Coachella Valley High School picked the Arabs because the area is rich with date trees imported from the Middle East. The Hollywood High School Sheiks were named in homage to the 1921 Rudolph Valentino movie. And Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead chose the “Fighting Scots” because the school, on the edge of Highway 18, feels as if it’s perched in the Scottish Highlands.

“Highlanders seemed a natural thing to be,” said Principal Walt Harris, who has worked at the school for many years. “But there were already several Highlanders as mascots. So they went to the Fighting Scots. The Fighting Scots were tribesmen, they were brave.... I frankly look at people who object to that, and I think they are missing the point.”

Names chosen because of the warrior-like images they conjure up--the Moors, after all, invaded Spain in the 8th century--are criticized for the warrior-like images they conjure up.

Earlier this year, Sonoma State University replaced its team name, the Cossacks, with the less militaristic Seawolves after students and community leaders complained that the first name honored a Russian ethnic group famed for mercenary work on behalf of the czars.”The Cossacks no longer serve as a unifying symbol,” Sonoma State President Ruben Arminana said in a press release at the time.

Michel Shehadeh, West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, agrees that mascots can reinforce negative stereotypes. “When you dehumanize people as images or characters, it becomes OK to hurt them.”

Goldberg echoed that concern. “If you want to honor a people, find a famous Scotsman and name the school after him. Or pick an important leader in the Cherokee or Apache nation. Making [a tribe] a mascot is not an honor.”

Goldberg’s bill, AB 2115, has passed the Assembly Education and Higher Education committees, but it must still clear the Assembly and Senate before reaching the desk of Gov. Gray Davis, who has taken no position on the measure. Opposition to the bill so far has been meager, in part because of the power, or perceived power, of North American tribes and Native American activists backing it.

And although turning Saxons into Sharks might be seen as a pragmatic move in some circles, even the most innocuous names can have unexpected implications.

The Sonoma Seawolves were intended to allude to Jack London’s classic novel. However, seawolf can have a militaristic meaning too, as several letters to a local newspaper suggested. It was the nickname for a Nazi U-Boat commander.