The Coachella Valley Unified School Board will hold a special meeting on Friday to discuss the Coachella Valley High School “Arab,” a longstanding mascot that has been criticized by a national anti-discrimination group.
The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in the library at the high school, said Darryl Adams, school district superintendent. The school board initially planned to discuss the mascot during a regular meeting on Oct. 21, but Adams said the special meeting would allow more time for public comment and board discussion.
An agenda for the meeting has not yet been released.
In a letter sent to The Desert Sun on Tuesday, Adams explained that the Arab mascot “was never intended to dishonor or ridicule anyone.” The mascot, originally a lance-wielding horseman, was introduced in the 1920s to honor a link between Middle Eastern cultures and date farming in the Coachella Valley, Adams wrote.
“A mascot chosen to show reverence and honor for the customs of prideful Middle Eastern peoples throughout our region, now provokes negative feelings, and this must be addressed,” Adams wrote, adding later in the letter, “Times change, people change, and, subsequently, even symbols and words embraced for decades may need to be considered for change as well.”
The Coachella Valley High School mascot came under fire on Nov. 1, when the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee sent a letter chastising the school district for “orientalist stereotyping” in school murals and football halftime shows.
MORE: Letter from CVUSD superintendent on Arabs mascot
The school’s mascot logo, proudly displayed on the campus and school website, is a snarling, hook-nosed, bearded man wearing a headscarf, often pictured with a single tooth. The image reenforces a longstanding stereotype of an Arab as a villain, said Abed Ayoub, director of legal and policy affairs for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. During football games, a student in a cartoonish costume joins belly dancers during halftime shows.
“The way some people in our community looked at this was as if she was the submissive woman dancing for the mean Arab guy. There is more to this community than bad guys and belly dancers,” Ayoub said.
As news of the mascot controversy spread this week, students and alumni sprung to the defense of the longstanding Arab name. Over the past few days, a flurry of interviews, letters to the editor, social media postings and an unofficial poll on MyDesert.com have shown widespread support for the mascot in the local community.