Heated Rutland School Board Meeting Puts Old Mascot Back on the Table

An article at VTDigger, written by Emma Cotton, linked here.

Published online on April 14, 2021

At a raucous school board meeting Tuesday night, a former Rutland High School mascot was nearly resurrected.

The school board voted in February to change the mascot from the “Raiders” to the “Ravens,” after a group of alumni, students and staff pointed to the previous mascot’s racist origins.

At an emotionally charged meeting Tuesday night, multiple board members were yelling over one another, arguing not so much about the mascot but about parliamentary procedure.

Full story here. Commentary at Atowi below:

The benighted refusal to listen to voices from the Native community is deeply troubling, and indicative of the deep-seated and willful persistence of historical patterns of dismissal and erasure, in Vermont and elsewhere. We continue to await a sign that the Board itself invites a substantive dialogue, on not only this immediate example, but the mindset that leads to it. As a public educational institution, the very mission of the Board is to accept responsibility for this charge, and move toward awareness and understanding.