{"id":66240,"date":"2025-12-09T23:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/66240\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T23:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:37:10","slug":"massapequa-promises-fight-isnt-over-on-schools-chiefs-mascot-after-court-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/66240\/","title":{"rendered":"Massapequa promises ‘fight’ isn’t over on school’s Chiefs mascot after court setback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Massapequa pledged to continue the \u201cfight\u201d to keep Chiefs as its school team name<\/a> after a judge tossed a lawsuit looking to dissolve a state ban on indigenous mascots.<\/p>\n

The school district and the Native American Guardians Association sued the state<\/a> <\/a>Board of Regents over its controversial 2023 mandate that required all public schools to remove indigenous imagery and team names or face funding cuts.<\/p>\n

But a Long Island judge dismissed the suit and refused an injunction on the ban \u2014 with school officials now pledging to appeal the \u201cincorrect decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massapequa school district vowed to continue to \u201cfight\u201d after a judge tossed an attempt to overturn New York state\u2019s ban on Native American school mascots. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to fight to preserve the Chiefs\u2019 name,\u201d the Massapequa Board of Education said in a statement to The Post Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The non-profit NAGA, which is heavily for the use of Native American mascots in sports culture<\/a>, contracted with Massapequa to permit and support its use of the Chiefs\u2019 logo, in addition to having the group teach supplementary indigenous educational curriculum.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking about strength, talking about being something that people uphold,\u201d NAGA member Frank Black Cloud previously told The Post of the Chiefs and related names.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to emulate you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guardians argued in court that forcing the town to remove its longtime Chiefs name interfered with NAGA\u2019s right to contract \u2014 but Judge Sanket Bulsara shot down that stance in a ruling last month.<\/p>\n

The Massapequa Board of Education sued the state Board of Regents over the 2023 mandate on indigenous imagery at public schools. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post<\/p>\n

Massapequa softball players posing in front of a Chiefs mural at the high school on May 28, 2025. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cNAGA has no right to the Chiefs mascot. It does not own it or have a trademark on it,\u201d Bulsara wrote in court papers. \u201cNAGA has no greater right to license the Chiefs mascot than a random member of the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bulsara was also critical of the state, writing that New York\u2019s Native mascot and logo ban \u201cmay have serious constitutional defects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears to enact a legal classification based on race or ancestry, which subjects it to the most demanding form of judicial scrutiny,\u201d the judge added. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe law may also abridge the First Amendment free speech rights of Massapequa School Board members and District employees. These difficult questions, however, are not the subject of this opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York State Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

Black Cloud and more members of NAGA joined Secretary of Education Linda McMahon at Massapequa High School\u2019s gym last May as she spoke to students and vowed federal support for the conservative town.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a top priority of this administration to protect Massapequa,\u201d McMahon reiterated to The Post in August<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Trump holding up a Massapequa Chiefs shirt in the Oval Office. Instagram\/realdonaldtrump<\/p>\n

President Trump has also been vocal for months on the matter, and last summer told Fox News host and Massapequa native Brian Kilmeade<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get the name back to the Chiefs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has become the School\u2019s identity and, what could be wrong with using the name, \u201cChief\u201d? I don\u2019t see the Kansas City Chiefs changing their name anytime soon!\u201d Trump posted on Truth Social in April<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NAGA has until Dec. 29 to file an amended complaint. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Massapequa pledged to continue the \u201cfight\u201d to keep Chiefs as its school team name after a judge tossed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153,67,5392,776,57,774,1768,9,11,10,49,51,50,209],"class_list":["post-66240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-donald-trump","tag-education","tag-linda-mcmahon","tag-long-island","tag-metro","tag-nassau-county","tag-native-americans","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-public-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}