Eye On Illinois: Native mascot ban inevitable as West plays legislative long game

Maurice West is nothing if not persistent.

West, D-Rockford, joined the state House in January 2019 and for almost the entirety of his tenure has been working on legislation regarding schools using Native American names and images as mascots.

In February 2020, West floated the idea of requiring schools to get written permission from tribal officials to use such iconography. That and similar legislative attempts floundered in ensuing years, but as Shaw Media’s Maribeth Wilson wrote this week, West continues to seek solutions.

Last year West backed House Bill 1633, a plan that garnered bipartisan support to mandate Native American history in public school curriculum. That law stemmed from West’s conversations with members of federally recognized tribes as an offshoot of the mascot discussion.

But the work isn’t done, and so West is back at the table with House Bill 5617, a stronger proposal than past efforts in that it would outright prohibit native names, logos and mascots, setting Sept. 1, 2027, as a deadline. He’s met with groups representing principals and school boards to make sure the spirit of his legislation aligns with its intent and is quite content playing the long game.

“My hope is that we do get it to the finish line,” West said. “But, I don’t want to rush it. If we do pass it, for Native American people, it should not be a one-sided vote. It needs to be a bipartisan vote. And that’s what my focus is and my hope is we can get it to that point.”

This isn’t new territory. One of my first Eye On Illinois columns in June 2020 looked at a movement to retire the Minooka Indians mascot, which gathered momentum when actor Nick Offerman shared a petition calling for change at his alma mater. But even that piece acknowledged this is a struggle measured in decades:

“Chief Illiniwek has been retired as an official symbol at the University of Illinois since 2007. The Peoria Chiefs baseball team in 2005 shifted from native iconography to that of a Dalmatian in a firefighter uniform. Bradley University remains the Braves but hasn’t used Indian imagery since 1992. There are myriad other examples.”

Other states have wrestled with topic long before Maine passed a full ban in 2019, and the patchwork of regulations and restrictions continues to develop. This offers plenty of real-world examples for Illinois to model or avoid and further validates the predictions that eventually, by choice or force, these changes will come to pass.

West is correct in insisting the best path forward is rooted in consensus while also teaching the value of perseverance. There always will be ardent opposition, but it eventually will diminish into defeat.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.