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OKEMOS Okemos student-athletes will no longer compete as the Chiefs after district leaders cast a vote 30 years in the making.
The Okemos Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to stop using the Chiefs nickname, which an increasing number of students, alumni and residents say is an offensive caricature of indigenous people.
The board hopes to adopt a new mascot by 2024.
The decision comes after decades of discussion surrounding Okemos Public Schools moniker, which was picked for the town of Okemos namesake, Chief Okemos.
Superintendent John Hood was the most recent district leader to consider a name change for the district late last year. But discussions surrounding the nickname and mascot date at least to the mid-1990s, when Katie Cavanaugh, secretary for the Board of Education, was an Okemos High School student.
The Okemos Public Schools Board of Education voted earlier this week to discontinue using the nickname Chiefs.
The Lansing State Journal says that decision comes after several students, alumni, and residents have commented that the nickname is an offensive caricature of indigenous people.
The school was named after Chief Okemos and has been since Katie Cavanaugh, a secretary for the Board of Education, was a student at Okemos High School in the 1990s.
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Cavanaugh told the Lansing State Journal that the nickname has always made her uncomfortable because it s offensive and gendered.
There have been some individuals who have expressed keeping the nickname as they thought it was a great way to honor American Indians and Chief Okemos.