CENTRALIA — The Washington state Office of the Attorney General will not provide an opinion to the Toledo School District on whether or not exemptions included in a new state mascot law apply to them.
Such an exemption would allow the high school to keep its “Indians” name.
According to a letter sent last week to state Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, the lawmaker who made the request on the district’s behalf, the attorney general’s office is denying the request because it would require fact-finding.
“As your request acknowledges, the applicability of an exemption depends on a number of facts,” read the letter drafted by Deputy Attorney General Alicia Young. “Answering your request would therefore require our office to engage in fact-finding, which is not the purpose of the Attorney General Opinion process.”
Brionna Aho, communications director with the AG’s office, said in an email that the goal of the opinions are to “answer questions of law, not questions of fact.”
“In other words: When the meaning of a statute is not in dispute, analyzing how a law applies to an individual’s situation is a job for that individual’s legal counsel,” she wrote.
The Toledo School District is currently considering its options on how to move forward following the passage earlier this year of House Bill 1356, which prohibits the use of Native American iconography and names as public school branding and mascots.
District staff and the school board are currently looking at exemptions that would allow it to keep its popular-but-controversial “Indians” mascot. Under the law, some school districts located on ancestral land or nearby may be exempt if they receive approval from the tribe. Toledo believes its relationship and proximity to the Cowlitz Indian Tribe satisfies this exemption.
But the Cowlitz Indian Tribe hasn’t yet officially given its decision on the exemption, said Superintendent Chris Rust. Though many members of the Tribe have given their own input, the Cowlitz Tribal Council is not believed to have formally made a decision on whether or not to support the district’s attempts at retaining its mascot, despite reports from school board members.
Rust said the district will work to get the issue in front of the Tribal Council and get clarity on where the elders stand on the issue. Their decision, he said, would create a fork in the road.
If the Tribe were to give an OK to allow Toledo to remain the Indians, Rust said, he thinks they have a better chance of keeping the mascot.
“Based on how we’re on Cowlitz ancestral land, and we have a good relationship with the Tribe, I think we have good standing to remain the Indians only if we have endorsement from the Tribe,” Rust said.
But a “no” from the Tribe could mean only one thing, Rust said: rebranding.
The district has until the Jan. 1, 2021, to get approval on its existing mascot or to rebrand.
The Toledo School District throughout the spring and summer led a number of stakeholder groups with members from the community, Tribe, alumni and staff. A community survey conducted with dozens of possible replacements found “Riverhawks” to be the preferred mascot, coming in second only to an option keeping the current mascot.
David Barnett, chairman of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, told The Daily News recently that the Tribe has not fully discussed it but that the question would be voted on by Cowlitz Tribe membership.
According to the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, 35 of 420 high school schools listed with the organization have Native-themed mascots, names or logos. There are six other schools within the state with an “Indians” moniker.
