Residents of Dartmouth, Massachusetts voted decisively on Tuesday to keep the high school’s Indian logo in place.
The question of whether to remove it, posed to voters as a non-binding referendum on the same ballot as municipal elections, had driven a passionate discussion in town for months, pitting liberal opponents of the logo against an unexpected alliance of Republican activists and local members of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe.
The results of Tuesday’s election show overwhelming support among Dartmouth voters for the Indian logo. More than 81 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of keeping it, sending a clear message to school committee members weighing a final decision on the logo’s future.
“We gave the mandate that we said that we would give,” said George Marcotte, a leader of a local campaign in support of the logo, at an election night party. “Now it’s up to the school committee to go ahead and vote 5-0 on this.”
The current iteration of the logo, featuring a depiction of an eastern Woodlands Indian, was introduced around 1974, according to Clyde Andrews, a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe who says he designed it while playing for the high school’s football team.
Andrews and several of his family members spoke in support of the logo at a series of public hearings held before the referendum. Their testimony blurred the lines of what might otherwise have been a familiar conflict between liberal anti-racism and conservative resistance to so-called “cancel culture.”
In the lead-up to the referendum, a ballot committee organized and funded by Marcotte and other leaders of the town’s Republican party played a significant role in raising awareness about the debate over the Indian logo. The ballot committee’s signs, bearing the Indian logo and the words “Defend Dartmouth,” dotted lawns throughout town.
But Andrews said Tuesday’s results show that support for the Indian logo was never a partisan issue in Dartmouth.
“You see, it’s not Republicans or Democrats,” Andrews said. “It’s everybody.”
Because the vote was non-binding, Dartmouth’s school committee will have the final say on whether the logo stays or goes. The committee has not set a date for a vote. Defend Dartmouth has warned it may organize recall elections for school committee members who vote to retire the logo.
Shannon Jenkins, the school committee’s chairwoman, said the results will not influence her opposition to the Indian logo, which she said encourages racist stereotyping of Native Americans.
“I think matters of civil rights shouldn’t be put up to public vote,” Jenkins said.
The referendum also appears to have driven a surge in voter turnout, which more than doubled on Tuesday relative to other recent municipal elections.
Ben Berke is the South Coast Bureau Reporter for The Public’s Radio. He can be reached at bberke@thepublicsradio.org. Follow him on Twitter @BenBerke6.
