This is a petition to put a stop to the recent bill passed by RU Student Assembly that calls for multiple scarlet knights. We as a community have an image that we serve to uphold and a rising position in intercollegiate sports with the recent partnership with BIG 10 conference. This image is not to be confused by multiple mascots. A mascot is created solely to be the "spokesman" for our sports team and in no way is meant to represent the school as a whole. Furthermore, the addition of multiple mascots will by no means create a greater understanding of Rutgers diversity or complete any social agendas.

Brennan announced that the assembly would leave it up to "basically the student body as a whole to determine how many knights they’d like and what these knights would represent." This plan is in no way solidified and many details are up in the air. Our mascot is not insensitive to any race, gender, or belief; which has been the problem of other colleges in the past, but is not the current case here. If RUSA feels that change needs to be made to our mascot, then this is not the answer. And if the student body does feel a change to our mascot is necessary why not create one mascot of no race, gender, religion, or belief? This was a lazy attempt by RUSA to fix a problem not too many people have an issue with.

How many mascots will we have on an ESPN commercial? Which mascot would get the most public time at games? Why overcomplicate an issue that does not need to be solved and create additional problems on such an unimportant issue? Rutgers I beg of you to let our student assembly hear our voice. They may represent us and our concerns but I for one feel that they did not adequately represent us on this issue. Sign this petition so that they may hear our voice and create proper change.

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2015/05/rutgers_should_leave_the_scarlet_knight_mascot_alo.html