President Donald Trump is weighing in on a school mascot dispute at Massapequa High School, where some parents are upset that a Chiefs mascot and logo must go under a state rule.
Federal education officials said on Friday that they had opened a civil rights inquiry into whether New York State could withhold state money from a Long Island school district that has refused to follow a state requirement and drop its Native American mascot.
The announcement came shortly after President Trump expressed his support for the district, in Massapequa, N.Y., in its fight against complying with a state Board of Regents requirement that all districts abandon mascots that appropriate Native American culture or risk losing state funding.
The Massapequa district, whose “Chiefs” logo depicts an illustrated side profile of a Native American man in a feathered headdress, is one of several that have resisted making a change.
The name of the town, a middle-class swath of the South Shore where most residents voted for Mr. Trump in the November election, was derived from the Native American word “Marspeag” or “Mashpeag,” which means “great water land.”
In announcing the investigation, Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said that her department would “not stand by as the state of New York attempts to rewrite history and deny the town of Massapequa the right to celebrate its heritage in its schools.”
JP O’Hare, a spokesman for the state Education Department, said in a statement that state education officials had not been contacted by the federal government about the matter.
