The Iron County School District board wants voters to decide whether to change Cedar High School’s name back to the controversial “Redmen.” Board members voted 6-1 Tuesday night to put the issue on the ballot as “early as legally possible.”
Iron County Clerk Jon Whittaker told KUER, however, that he doesn’t think the school board has the power to put this particular question on the ballot. Based on conversations with the Lt. Governor’s Office and state code, Whittaker said only the legislature can put “opinion questions” on the ballot.
The phrase “redmen” is offensive, Autumn Gillard, the cultural resource manager for the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, told the board, and is used by some to “degrade and dehumanize Native Americans.”
It’s a phrase, along with “redskin,” that came from two places, “our skin color and the cruel torture of skinning Native Americans in the 1800s for bounties,” she said.
This is the latest iteration of a debate that has been going on for years, one that community members say has divided them.
In 2019, a previous board voted 3-2 to retire the name and Cedar High became the “Reds.” But that didn’t end the debate. Current board members Jeff Corry and Dave Staheli both campaigned for their respective seats on restoring the original moniker.
Staheli, Corry and board member Lauren Lewis put the mascot issue on the board’s March 26 agenda. During the discussion, board members clarified they were talking about bringing back the name, not the mascot.
Lewis said this is one of the “biggest issues” she hears about from her constituents. Several community members showed up to the meeting wearing “Redmen” t-shirts.
After more than two hours of public comment, a board vote to reinstate the name failed. But member Megan Ralphs proposed letting the public decide and that motion passed 6-1, with member Tiffiney Christiansen voting against it.
Superintendent Lance Hatch told the board they were able to put issues on the ballot.
The motion said the issue would be on the soonest possible election and board members talked about it being on the November ballot. Members said they would still need to work with district attorneys to figure out when exactly the issue could be put on a ballot and what the language would look like.
Whittaker said the law is pretty clear in saying only the Legislature can put opinion questions on the ballot. He told KUER that he reached out to the school district after the board meeting and shared this information.
In response, district spokesperson Shauna Lund told KUER in a text message, “The district is consulting with its attorney to look into what is allowable by law and what it would take to put an issue like this to voters. It is too early in the process to give a definitive answer to what that possibility may be.”
Leaders of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, a federally recognized sovereign nation in southwest Utah, told the board they opposed reinstating the name and asked them not to. Multiple leaders and members said the term was derogatory and did not honor them.
Despite this repeated message, some non-Indigenous people claimed the name was respectful. They accused the Paiute Tribe of not listening to its members and claimed most Indigenous people supported the name.
If the community wanted to honor the tribe, tribal leaders said there were more appropriate ways than this.
Tamra Borchardt-Slayton, Indian Peaks Band chairperson, read a letter to the board from the five constituent bands that make up the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.
It said the term “Redmen” is “not recognized within Native American communities as paying respect to the history and legacy of this nation's first people, but rather a slang term that has been used for over 200 years to attribute racial defamation to Native people.”
Corry said he had previously gone door-to-door on Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah land to ask members about reinstating the name. Borchardt-Slayton read in the letter that Corry did not have permission from the tribe to do this and said that the land is private property.
For tribal chairperson Corrina Bow, this is a particularly emotional issue because her granddaughter was one of the Cedar High students who stood up and asked for the name to be changed in 2019. Bow said her granddaughter, Thalia Guerrero, received death threats and she feared for her life. Guerrero later told the board she shouldn’t have to be addressing them again for the same issue.
“I am enraged. It's really hard to stand here and listen to these people talk about my culture when they have no idea what our culture is.”
Despite tribal leaders and some tribal members asking, sometimes emotionally, for the “Redmen” name not to come back, some school board and community members argued the name was a respected and important part of the community.
Multiple community members identified themselves as proud Redmen during public comment. One non-Indigenous Cedar High alum, Liz Riddle, read a poem about the “mighty redmen” and claimed the name was not divisive. She said it even created a sense of unity “between the whites and the Native Americans.”
In a statement, Hatch acknowledged and recognized “that some may have been harmed by the Redmen name over the years and we do not dismiss the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah’s request to not reinstate the name. However, I also acknowledge the harm that has been done to community members who feel a connection to the name.”
He added that he hopes “we can heal this divide and move forward, working together to be respectful of one another and ensuring that our current students receive the education they deserve without interruption.”
