New York plans to partially repeal its statewide ban on Native American school logos, a major win for Massapequa’s Chiefs after years of fighting Albany’s mandate.

Days before a court showdown, the Board of Regents intends to repeal a key section of its 2023 order that barred school officers and employees from using or promoting any Indigenous name, logo, or mascot on campus or at school events.

The move lands as a hard-earned break for the Massapequa school district on Long Island, which has fought to keep the Chiefs name and logo with backing from the Trump administration while non-compliant public schools risked losing state funds.

The Post reviewed court documents showing the Board of Regents plans to formally announce the partial repeal at a November meeting and take a final vote in February. Legal arguments from both sides are set to begin on Nov. 4.

Massapequa Board of Education President Kerry Wachter made the district’s stance plain.

"After years of fighting to keep the Chiefs, we’re proud of this victory,"

Wachter also pressed for a full rollback.

"We encourage the Board of Regents to take the next step and repeal the regulation in its entirety. Once a Chief, always a Chief."

Albany’s 2023 order put names and logos in the crosshairs

The 2023 Board of Regents mandate prohibited school officers and employees from “utilizing or promoting any Indigenous name, logo, or mascot” while on campus or at a school function. Districts that refused risked state money.

Massapequa estimated it would cost nearly $1 million to rebrand away from a long-used name and logo. Neighboring Amityville Warriors got priced out of litigation as the fight dragged on for years.

The district does not field an official mascot and keeps Native American imagery off team uniforms. Some merchandise has used the head of a Native American chief. Students in the senior class of 2027 have been making shirts that read “2till 7he Chiefs!” during the standoff.

Massapequa was one of several districts that sued New York over the ban. Officials accused the state of a civil rights violation for targeting only Native American imagery while placing no similar limits on imagery tied to any other ethnicity.

State Education Department shifts clothing calls back to locals

State Education Department spokesperson JP O’Hare confirmed the department will recommend that the Board of Regents leave decisions about “employee clothing, including apparel displaying offensive indigenous imagery” to local school districts, the same authority districts already hold on other attire and personnel choices.

O’Hare also noted that legal challenges from Long Island school boards have been unsuccessful so far. That record makes the planned partial repeal stand out even more as Albany retreats under pressure.

Massapequa’s lawyer, Oliver Roberts, who was raised in the town, framed the shift as a constitutional reckoning.

"The State has realized that its attempts to erase Massapequa’s history and tradition are patently unconstitutional,"

Roberts sees the first rollback as a sign of what may follow. The Native American Guardians Association, described as an anti-woke group, also sued New York over the ban and has said it is willing to take the case to the Supreme Court. The group’s lawyer, Chap Petersen, called the ban “the dumbest law of all time” in January.

Trump administration put federal weight behind the Chiefs

President Trump pledged in 2025 to “fight” for the Chiefs nation, posted “LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!” on Truth Social, and posed in the Oval Office wearing a Massapequa sweatshirt. That kind of direct presidential push has become familiar as Trump warns Democrats against fresh political attacks and keeps pressure on opposing institutions.

Trump assigned Education Secretary Linda McMahon to investigate the ban. After visiting Massapequa High School in May that year, McMahon turned over civil rights-related findings to the Justice Department.

Federal scrutiny of ideological education rules fits a wider pattern in which Democratic senators denounce Trump moves that cut DEI and related spending. Albany’s logo mandate sat in the same cultural lane, top-down rules that treat local tradition as a problem to manage rather than a community choice.

Local Republicans keep the heat on Hochul

Republican gubernatorial candidate and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has pledged to preserve the logo and name if elected. He recently taunted Gov. Kathy Hochul at a Pequa football game while holding Chiefs gear.

"You tried to take that away from Massapequa, no way."

That message lands with voters who see school identity fights as another front in a larger culture clash. Similar fights over process and power show up when Trump calls ranked-choice voting a rigged scheme, and when media figures scramble after underestimating him, as when Behar invites Trump back after harsh on-air claims.

Courts remain part of the story too. A Biden-appointed judge berates Trump officials in other cases, and Long Island districts have already spent years battling state education lawyers. Massapequa’s case now sits days from oral arguments even as the Regents signal a partial climbdown.

What the partial repeal still leaves open

The Board of Regents is not yet killing the entire 2023 regulation. The planned change centers on the section covering school officers and employees promoting Indigenous names, logos, or mascots on campus or at school functions, with the State Education Department steering clothing decisions back to local boards.

Massapequa leaders want the whole rule gone. Wachter’s “Once a Chief, always a Chief” line is not nostalgia alone. It is a demand that Albany stop treating one community’s history as forbidden while leaving every other ethnic reference untouched.

Taxpayers already faced a near-$1 million rebrand bill and the threat of lost state aid for refusing to comply. Other districts walked away from court because they could not afford the fight. A state that singles out Native American imagery, then folds only after federal attention and years of litigation, has shown how these mandates actually work.

When bureaucrats rewrite local tradition from Albany and call it progress, communities that push back are doing the public a favor, and Massapequa just proved the point.