Long Island school asks Trump to step into battle over Chiefs mascot with just one week until legal deadline

A Long Island school pleaded Monday with the Trump administration to jump into its ongoing fight to keep its Native American team name – with one week until a pivotal legal deadline.Massapequa school officials sent a letter to Trump Education Secretary Linda McMahon asking the feds to intervene in a legal case to preserve its Chiefs name and logo in the face of a New York State ban on Native American imagery.“In Massapequa, three things are certain: death, taxes and ‘once a Chief, always a Chief,’” the district’s attorney Oliver Roberts wrote in the 10-page letter.The school has a May 12 deadline to file an amended complaint in its litigation against the Empire State and is supposed to rebrand from the Chiefs by the end of June or risk losing state funding.“While most school districts capitulated to the State’s unconstitutional assault on history and tradition, Massapequa did not.

Instead, we fought back,” the letter states.“This is not just a local issue — Massapequa is now the battleground for the preservation of our history and values nationwide,” it adds.

“Without the Department’s intervention before these critical deadlines, the resulting harm to our educational institutions and cultural traditions will be irreversible.”President Trump has said publicly he supports keeping the name Chiefs and said he would direct the Education Department to get involved.The school said the deadlines call for immediate intervention.Massapequa has said the name Chiefs pays homage to the area’s Indigenous roots and officials contend in its suit that New York’s ban and several exemptions within it are discriminatory under the state’s Title VI as it targets Native American imagery but allows names such as the Fighting Irish or Vikings to remain in place.Massapequa has been fighting the state Board of Regents’ 2023 ban for two years, so far with little success.

In March, a judge ruled against the school district but the battle was given a boos...