MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. (PIX11) -- There's been an ongoing dispute between New York State and local Long Island departments of education over Native American mascot names and images used at schools.
This week, a new and influential voice joined the debate, and its effect is being gauged. President Donald Trump weighed in on one school district's insistence on keeping its indigenous mascot name and emblems, which are ubiquitous.
Images of a Native American chief in full headdress are on signs, murals, stonework and elsewhere around Massapequa. Its high school teams are called the Chiefs, and longstanding residents say that being the Chiefs is who they are. Trump posted on his social media feed that he was instructing federal education secretary Linda McMahon “to fight for the people of Massapequa" against a 2023 New York State order requiring schools with indigenous names and images to change them by June 30.
Trump took issue with that in his post.
“Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population,” he wrote, concluding, in all capital letters, “LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!”
Massapequa is a heavily Republican area, and everyone PIX11 News spoke with showed support for keeping the Chiefs name, and for Trump's comments about the issue.
"I guess he had to," said Arthur Schnee, a 1977 graduate of Massapequa High, who added criticism of New York's governor. "Hochul is out of control," he said. "It's none of her business to come into our district and tell us what we can do."
Marilyn Cerrochi, another longtime resident, also said that the president's involvement was a new chapter in Trump's ongoing conflict with the governor.
"I think it's mostly because of Hochul in New York," she said. "I don't think it's so much about Massapequa."
Larry Levy, the executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, and a suburban politics expert, said that the president's involvement is related to a hotly contested election for Nassau County executive this fall.
"This is a hot-button issue," Levy said, "that President Trump would help his fellow Republicans with."
County Executive Bruce Blakeman is one of those fellow Republicans. He's running for reelection this November. Still, Blakeman insists that the dispute involving the Chiefs' name and imagery is not about politics.
"The state was arbitrary and capricious" on the issue, he said. "They never consulted with the local communities and the local school districts, and we feel that it's wrong."
For its part, the New York State Department of Education said through a spokesperson that it was Massapequa that didn't engage with them. The two sides have an ongoing legal dispute.
State Education Department spokesperson P.J. O'Hare criticized the Massapequa school district for pursuing legal action after the state's 2023 order, rather than trying to work with state authorities and others, including Native American groups.
"Our regulations, in fact, specifically permit the continued use of Native American names and mascots," O'Hare said in a statement, "if approved by local tribal leaders."
Nine districts on Long Island have complied with the state's order. Four, including Massapequa, have not. The other three are Connetquot, Wantaugh, and Wyandanch.
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