Lansing Sexton High School dropping 'Big Reds' mascot, will undergo complete rebranding

LANSING — Lansing Sexton High School students will no longer be known as the Big Reds: The school district is dropping the Native American mascot and starting a search for a new one.

The move comes with the help of an $87,500 Native American Heritage Fund grant, which supports projects aimed at reducing the number of insensitive school mascots while honoring Native American culture and history.

Lansing School District made the official announcement Thursday morning.

“Everyone who knows me also knows I’m the biggest 'Big Red' alumna (Sexton class 2000) and booster,” Gabrielle Lawrence, president of the Lansing School District Board of Education, said in a press release. “Most all of my classmates and friends understand it’s time for a change. This rebranding is the right thing to do and now is the time to do it. Sexton will always be the same great school, we are only making it better. Alumni will even get to participate in the branding process through community feedback forums.”

The total transformation is estimated to cost about $250,000, according to Sexton Principal Dan Boggan, an amount the district asked for in its grant request. The district plans to apply for another Native American Heritage Fund grant next year to provide additional financial support to the transition.

The school district will cover any remaining costs, Lawrence said.

The search for a new mascot and logo will be driven by students, alumni and community members, Boggan said. Officials hope to have the new mascot and logo finalized by the end of the year and spend the first six to nine months of 2023 transitioning to the new mascot and logo.

The mascot and logo transition comes after numerous changes over the years, with the Big Reds logo transforming from a Native American wearing a headdress to a red block “S” with a 2 in the top right corner around 2014.

“This will be a complete reboot of the Sexton brand,” Lansing Superintendent Benjamin Shuldiner said in the press release. “This is a very exciting opportunity to include our school district family and come together to create something really terrific we all will be proud of in the future.”

The grant will promote dialogue within the school district to educate students and staff on Native American culture and explain how the former Big Reds mascot and logos were “culturally insensitive,” according to the press release.

“If we fund the decommissioning of racist mascot imagery now, we will have more money in the future for proactive program and curriculum programming,”  NAHF Chairperson Jamie Stuck, who is also the Tribal Council Chairperson for the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, said in a press release.

Lansing School District has 362 students of Native American heritage, according to the press release.

Adopting a new identity

Boggan said the district plans to have the new logo and mascot in place in 2023, according to the press release.

The Big Reds mascot has served as Sexton's nickname since the school opened in 1943 in what was then Central High School.

For about eight years, Sexton and the school district have slowly been moving away from the Big Reds mascot, starting with the elimination of Native American imagery. The school has sold and given away old items, but staff are still find things with arrows, Native American heads and other imagery.

Recently, officials found a newer electric sign that reads "home of the Big Reds."

"We've been moving in the direction of the change for at least eight years and having an opportunity to align with the Native American Heritage Fund just seemed only right since we were already making those changes in our school, outside of our school and our facilities," Boggan said on Thursday.

Officials have gone on multiple walk-throughs of the school, looking for any remaining imagery or Big Reds posters or prints in classrooms or offices.

"I say to our alumni and our students and our proud community … we are still J-Dubs. We are still Sexton High School," Boggan said. "This is a necessary change. I think that all of our alumni and student body would agree that we don’t want to be offensive to anyone and we want to make sure we’re conscious of that."

Lansing School District’s decision to drop the Big Reds mascot comes amid another  Native American mascot rebranding at Okemos High School.

More: The Okemos Chiefs face a name change 30 years in the making

The Okemos Public Schools Board of Education voted in May 2021 to drop the former Okemos Chiefs mascot and, in February, adopted “Wolves” as the new mascot. The rebranding work is estimated to cost $400,000, including to update uniforms, athletic fields, merchandise and other items with the new logo.

The Okemos Public Schools rebranding is also supported by the Native American Heritage Fund through a $213,663 grant.

Lansing School District previously received a separate, $47,712 Native American Heritage Fund grant last year to support the transition from the Riddle Elementary mascot — formerly the Little Reds, which featured a bear mascot wearing an American Indian headdress — to the Rhinos, named in part after the black rhino calf, Jaali, at the Potter Park Zoo.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission in 1988 issued a recommendation that all schools stop using Native American names and imagery as mascots or logos as "racial stereotyping of Native Americans is prevalent and destructive."

Boggan said he supports that work.

"We don’t want to be a part of those schools holding on to those mascots and logos," he said. "Hopefully with us, Riddle and Okemos and others, we can reduce that number even more, hopefully, to zero soon."

Contact Mark Johnson at (517) 377-1026 or majohnson2@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Sexton High School is dropping the 'Big Reds' mascot