Debate Over Washington Redskins Name Comes to County Elementary School

After a parent said the school system should bar staff and students from wearing team garb, other parents defended the name

By Aaron Kraut

MCPS parent Jared Hautamaki testifies at the Oct. 13 Board of Education meeting Via Montgomery County Board of Education

Updated Tuesday – Jared Hautamaki, a member of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians and a Silver Spring resident, was dropping his son off at Highland Elementary School in Wheaton last month when he noticed the school’s principal wearing a Washington Redskins polo shirt.

On the sleeve of the shirt was the name that has inspired a national debate and calls for the professional football team to change its name. Other staff members, including his son’s teacher, were also wearing Redskins clothing.

On Oct. 13, on the occasion of the Montgomery County Board of Education (BOE) recognizing November’s American Indian Heritage Month, Hautamaki asked the BOE to ban staff and students from wearing the “racist imagery” of the Redskins logo.

At Monday’s BOE meeting, a fellow parent at the school testified that wearing Redskins clothes should continue to be allowed and that Hautamaki, the past president of the Native American Bar Association of Washington, D.C., should “respect the opinion and feelings of many families at Highland.”

The testimony, delivered by parent Vanessa Miranda, included the signatures of about 40 other parents and cited “the financial sacrifice” of buying a Redskins jersey as one of the reasons Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) shouldn’t bother with banning the logo.

“None of us are trying to dehumanize Native Americans but rather we are demonstrating our American love of football,” reads the testimony. “For many of our families, buying a Redskins jersey is a financial sacrifice, one they are willing to make to support their local NFL team. No one is wearing the gear to convey a message of racism. We are an inclusive community that prides itself on our diversity.

“Most team names in sports have the potential to offend someone,” the testimony continued. “But being offensive is not a crime, and being offended does not make you a victim. If you don’t like the Washington Redskins, then don’t support them. That’s the American Way!”

The BOE banned MCPS schools from using American Indian mascots in 2001, something Hautamaki pointed out in his testimony earlier this month.

He also pointed to MCPS policy that clothing “that offends or disrupts learning is inappropriate.” Given the invalidation of the Redskins trademark by a federal judge earlier this year, Hautamaki said American Indian students “deserve an education environment free from racism and racist imagery.”

“I can hardly imagine a situation where students or staff were allowed to wear other racial slurs on their chests, sleeves and heads,” Hautamaki told the BOE on Oct. 13. “Why Native students should continue to suffer this indignity is inexcusable.”

Miranda gave her view at Monday night’s BOE meeting. The written testimony points to MCPS policy that says “students have the right of freedom of expression in dress, writing and other forms when it is balanced with the responsibility to maintain an environment conducive to learning.”

“A staff member or student wearing a Redskins jersey has never resulted in a disruption to learning,” Miranda said. “It is assumed that one person’s feeling of being offended should be more important than other people’s freedom of speech and expression. If this view becomes accepted, it will open the floodgates to new forms of censorship, as anyone with hurt feelings can claim that others must be silenced.”

Miranda wrote that most staff members at Highland Elementary School have chosen not to continue wearing Redskins clothing since Hautamaki’s complaint, but that “this is by their CHOICE, not by force.”

“We ask that this issue be put to rest so that the school can go back to the business of teaching and learning,” read the testimony.

There was no agenda item concerning Hautamaki’s request, and no BOE members discussed the matter after Miranda's testimony in the public comment portion of the meeting.