ANDERSON, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio school district has decided that its high school sports teams should no longer be known as the Redskins.
The Forest Hills Board of Education voted 4-1 on Thursday to “retire” the name and mascot at Anderson High School. A new name has not been chosen, and officials plan to soon announce a timeline and process for how a new name and mascot will be selected.
The Redskins logo will be phased out in stages beginning in the 2020-21 school year, officials said. Anderson Township is an eastern Cincinnati suburb.
Board members had discussed the name change at length during a meeting on Tuesday, with some noting they had resisted efforts to change the name in recent years but now felt it had become too divisive.
Board member Patty Taylor cast the lone vote against the motion, saying it should be postponed because there has been little public discussion on the matter outside of emails. Taylor said the decision should go to a public vote and also voiced concerns about the cost of removing imagery from the school.
Amid the national reckoning with racial injustice, pressure has been mounting on schools to abandon the name called a “dictionary-defined racial slur” by experts and advocates.