"A Teaching Opportunity": One Teacher's Plan to Keep the MHS Mascot

By Maddie Miga

On December 1st, 2020, the Millis School Committee met to address the potential changes regarding our high school mascot. For 60 years, students have begun and graduated high school as members of the Millis Mohawks. While some wish to conclude generations of being the Millis Mohawks, others believe that it’s not the mascot that needs to change, but how we honor it. Mr. Fallon, one of Millis’ history teachers and the high school’s girls varsity basketball coach, emphasized this during the school committee and in an interview with our staff.

During the conference, Fallon quoted that his goal of keeping our mascot, “is not to keep the Mohawks name because we’ve always had it, but because we’ve always had it but have failed to teach our school and community about these incredible people.” In the interview, Fallon elaborated on his argument that his intention of keeping the mascot isn’t for tradition, but for the educational opportunities, he wants to provide not only us students with but all of Millis. His proposal to the committee involved establishing a “Mohawk Council” for us students to learn more about Mohawk culture and building a “Mohawk Trail” at Oak Grove that incorporates facts and history about the specific tribe that once belonged to this area. Though Fallon presented his argument against the removal of our mascot, he admitted to agreeing with how it’s falsely depicted. 

While he remains on the opposing side of the Retire the Mohawk Committee, Fallon states that our town should “immediately get rid of images in our school that stereotypically depict Native Americans. For example, the image that’s on the center of our gym floor. These characters are harmful and perpetuate negative stereotypes of America’s first peoples.” When asked what images should be substituted for the current symbols, Fallon stated “whatever our next symbol is, I think the students naturally would want some voice in that process. But I also think we should really ask the Mohawk reserves that I made a relationship with and ask for their help.” While additionally incorporating his research on the Mohawk tribe, Fallon spoke about meeting with the two largest Native American reserves; Chief Joseph from the Kahnawake reserve and Chief Francis from the Akwesasne reserve. While individually meeting with both chiefs, Fallon noted, “the first thing both groups said was they appreciated being contacted and being asked these questions.” In our interview, he expressed that the majority of people talk for the Native Americans rather than letting them talk about an issue that they’re being affected by. In addition, these reserves announced that they “supported my (Mr. Fallon) efforts” and are more than willing to work with him to create projects and learning opportunities to better our understanding of the Mohawk tribe. 

Before interviewing Mr. Fallon, our staff’s Instagram posted a poll addressing other’s opinions on this issue. The results comprised 52% on Fallon’s side with 48% wanting the mascot to change. While the majority of athletes at Millis High School wish to keep us as the Millis Mohawks, and Fallon being involved with the Millis Athletics, when asked if being an athlete contributed to where someone stands on this topic Fallon replied, “naturally as a coach I have Millis pride, but when I began my research it came more from the history part of me rather than the basketball coach.” As a history teacher, Fallon believes it’s his obligation to provide us students with a better understanding of the Mohawk tribe through different projects and activities. Mr. Fallon is currently working with Grace Jewett on her senior project to form a “Mohawk Council” for all Millis High School students to be a part of. 

*Op-ed pieces are not opinions of the Millis High School Newspaper or our staff. Op-ed pieces are submitted by MHS students.

Letter from the editor concerning the MHS Newspaper's name change

In these past few weeks since we as a newspaper decided to change our name, I have had the unique opportunity to ruminate on this decision and on the nature of our newspaper itself. You see, a newspaper is two things. First, and primarily, it is the voice of the people it represents. Just as The New York Times speaks for the people of New York as well as, arguably certain parts of America, we at the as-for-now symbolically nameless Millis High School Newspaper speak for our student body and school community. That is why we will continue to give a platform for discussion and opinion to people on both sides of the conversation, as you can see with our companion op-eds by Grace Jewett and Eva Fabian. They are part of the beginning of a new project for our paper, centering around the discussion about our mascot that we have been having these past few years. If we were to begin reporting only one opinion, we would be failing in our jobs as reporters and as a vessel for your voice; we cannot, in good conscience, tell only half of the story, and it has never been our intention to do so, despite what mis-implications may have been drawn from our new nameless state.

That being said, a newspaper is also, like I mentioned before, a second thing. A newspaper is also a company, or an organization, or, in our humble case, a team. That team is perfectly within its rights to make decisions for itself and its operations that reflect the contexts and changes to their own work. The decision to change our name is not a response to anything particularly new happening within our school community. Every year since I have gone here, and I am sure for many more, petitions have been brought forth to change the name of our mascot. Our decision as a team is not a mandate to the school itself, nor is it an endorsement or prescription for any future actions taken by the school committee. In fact, we have been discussing the decision to change our name since Mr. Carter first opened the conversation during my very first meeting as editor—way back in October.

In the end, this is a decision we made as a team for ourselves. We made it for a variety of reasons. One of them being that we want to make an effort to include more input from the people we write our newspaper for, you. We want to hear your ideas for our new name, which you can submit on our Twitter and Instagram pages. We hope that by personalizing the name of our newspaper to this generation of Millis students, we can enhance our mission to represent your voices. On the topic of generation, I find it a small but nonetheless relevant digression to bring up the fact that the Millis High School Newspaper was not always called The Mohawk Post. Unlike the case of the school mascot itself, the newspaper has only printed under that name for about ten years. Our traditional name is The Crimson Letter, which, if our readers who value that sort of thing desire it to be so, we may return to in the future.

Finally, it would be erroneous and frankly a little condescending if I never acknowledged that the history and controversy around the use of “Mohawk” in our schools had something to do with the name change. The fact of the matter is that times in history like ours today call upon us to make choices. There is no impartial option here. To continue to publish under the name is to endorse its use; to remove the name is to make a statement, whether small or large, about that use. As I clarified earlier, this will not change our reporting, and it will certainly not change the representation of different opinions in our published works. This was a decision made purely by our team, for our own uses. It is my hope that you will decide to be a part of that decision by aiding us in our search for a new name.

Happy Holidays,

Callie Cassidy

Editor-in-Chief