Indian removed as Grafton High mascot, students will choose new name

Grafton High School is now a school without a mascot.

The School Committee unanimously voted Tuesday to eliminate the use of “Grafton Indians” as the team name and logo following complaints by students, a change.org petition, national teams eliminating similar names, and an overall objection from Nipmuc Nation to schools “honoring” their ancestors by mascotting them.

“it’s no longer serving its purpose, which is to create pride among the students,” School Committee member Elizabeth Spinney said.

That was an opinion backed up by Grafton High Principal Jim Pignataro. In a recent student survey, students spoke of the mascot being “antiquated” and noted that the school itself has mostly switched to a stylized “G” on uniforms, student gear, and the football field.

Some alumni in recent weeks defended the Indian as the town’s way of honoring the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Tribe who settled the region well before Grafton’s founding. Nipmuc Nation, however, has denounced the use of mascots based on Native Americans, writing in 2016 “Mascotting another group of people without their permission isn’t about love, respect and honor but privilege and power, the same privilege and power that discriminates against Native American people and our nations every day.”

Oddly enough, the name “Indian” possibly wasn’t even a reference to the Hassanamisco Nipmuc tribe. In their Grafton history book, Joe Kuras and Jayne Wilson say the usage started in the 1950s on the suggestion of then-Principal Harry Stevens — a proud Dartmouth College alumni who took his alma mater’s Indian mascot and the color now known as Grafton green as the high school’s branding.

Dartmouth, ironically, eliminated their own Indian mascot in 1974.

The head of a chief in a Plains headdress, formerly the official logo, is painted on the gym floors in both Grafton High School and Grafton Middle School. The head can also be found on the football field scoreboard and on the ends of the seat rows in the middle school auditorium. While those will be slowly eliminated due to cost, Superintendent of Schools James Cummings said the Indian on the schools’ website will be gone by Wednesday morning.

The vote comes during the same week the Washington Redskins announced they would change their team name, long considered offensive. Eliminating team names based on ethnicities came to the forefront in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests and discussions of white privilege.

“It has to happen, not only in Grafton but everywhere,” School Committee member Rahul Rathi said.

In the same vein, the School Committee also passed an anti-racism resolution, pledging to make staff and students more aware of other cultures, include multiple viewpoints in history, and eliminate problematic behavior.

Pignataro thanked the committee for the vote and said the mascot will be discussed and voted on by students. He compared it to the student-driven move a few years ago to replace gendered graduation robes — green for boys, white for girls — with a single gender-neutral green and white style. “We’ll do the same with our students and with alumni as well.”

School Committee Chair Laura Often said that while alumni may identify with the Indian, in the end it’s just a symbol.

“The pride is being a Grafton athlete, a Grafton student,” she said.

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