The college’s mascot will stay George 1 — George Washington’s head, donned by a scholar sporting a Revolutionary Conflict uniform. The college’s colours, buff and blue, can even stay the identical.
The total adoption of the Revolutionaries moniker will likely be carried out throughout the 2023-24 tutorial 12 months, the college mentioned.
Why It Issues: Establishments are retiring dated monikers.
The change is a component 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 pattern that accelerated after the homicide of George Floyd in 2020.
The N.F.L. staff in Washington became the Commanders in 2022 after almost 90 years of utilizing a slur in opposition to Native Individuals. The M.L.B. staff 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 referred to as Colonel Reb, with the Insurgent Black Bear.
The Colonials identify has been a part of the college’s identification 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 strategies that had been then narrowed all the way down to 10 choices “that greatest mirrored the spirit of GW,” the school said in a statement. College students, college, workers 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 coed physique voted to take away it, and shaped the “Something However Colonials Coalition.” The following 12 months, scholar organizations delivered a petition to the college president’s workplace searching for a reputation change.
However some alumni had been connected to the outdated identify and its reference to the revolutionary spirit that outlined Individuals throughout the British colonial period. Opponents argued Colonials was synonymous with violence and traditionally inaccurate.
Georgie Britcher, a white particular person with Indigenous ancestry who was a part of the committee that really useful a change to the board of trustees, mentioned the Revolutionaries is “a brand new moniker to be happy with.”
“I believe that eliminating the Colonials was a very powerful transfer,” she mentioned in a textual content to The New York Instances. “This identify is a way more acceptable path that aligns with the college’s group.”
Full disclosure: This alumna voted for Blue Fog.
