The college’s mascot will stay George 1 — George Washington’s head, donned by a scholar carrying a Revolutionary Struggle uniform. The college’s colours, buff and blue, will even stay the identical.
The complete adoption of the Revolutionaries moniker will probably be applied throughout the 2023-24 tutorial 12 months, the varsity stated.
Why It Issues: Establishments are retiring dated monikers.
The change is an element of a bigger shift in American sports activities and past as collegiate {and professional} groups drop monikers based mostly on Native American and Accomplice imagery, a development that accelerated after the homicide of George Floyd in 2020.
The N.F.L. group in Washington became the Commanders in 2022 after almost 90 years of utilizing a slur towards Native People. The M.L.B. group in Cleveland is now the Guardians after greater than 100 years below a reputation with comparable connotations. In 2010, the University of Mississippi replaced its longtime mascot, a Southern plantation proprietor often called Colonel Reb, with the Insurgent Black Bear.
The Colonials title has been a part of the college’s id since 1926, changing the Hatchetites, Hatchetmen, Axemen and Crummen (for Henry Crum, a soccer coach).
Background: College students have known as for the change for years.
The choice comes after a 12 months of group engagement efforts that included focus teams, surveys and a “Moniker Insanity” choice course of that prompted college students to vote during a men’s basketball game.
The college, in Washington close to the White Home and Nationwide Mall, acquired 8,000 moniker recommendations that have been then narrowed right down to 10 choices “that finest mirrored the spirit of GW,” the school said in a statement. College students, college, employees and alumni narrowed that down further to four finalists — “Ambassadors,” “Sentinels,” “Revolutionaries” and “Blue Fog,” after the Foggy Backside neighborhood — in March.
Opposition to the Colonials nickname erupted in 2019, when the scholar physique voted to take away it, and shaped the “Something However Colonials Coalition.” The subsequent 12 months, scholar organizations delivered a petition to the college president’s workplace looking for a reputation change.
However some alumni have been hooked up to the outdated title and its reference to the revolutionary spirit that outlined People throughout the British colonial period. Opponents argued Colonials was synonymous with violence and traditionally inaccurate, as a result of George Washington and his contemporaries seen it as a approach of claiming People have been parochial.
“It was a time period that he related to narrow-mindedness, with a sure provincialism,” stated Denver Brunsman, an affiliate professor of historical past on the college who’s a member of a committee that advisable the change to the board of trustees, in a March interview with The New York Times.
Georgie Britcher, a white individual with Indigenous ancestry who was additionally a member of the committee, stated the Revolutionaries is “a brand new moniker to be pleased with.”
“I believe that eliminating the Colonials was an important transfer,” she stated in a textual content message. “This title is a way more applicable path that aligns with the varsity’s group.”
Full disclosure: This alumna voted for Blue Fog.
