Schools offered financial help to drop offensive Native American mascots

High schools with sports teams or mascots that bear controversial Native American names may now face fewer cost barriers to making a change.

German footwear giant Adidas said Thursday that it will offer free design resources to any U.S. high schools looking to drop Native American mascots, names, imagery or symbolism. The announcement came in conjunction with a White House Tribal Nations Conference that drew leaders from the 567 federally recognized tribes.

The use of such mascots has drawn increased attention and controversy in recent years. The most prominent case involves a professional team, the NFL's Washington Redskins, whose owner has resisted appeals by Native American and civil rights groups to change the team's name and mascot.

Although the Adidas offer applies only to high schools, Native American leaders said they hoped the initiative would apply pressure to the Redskins franchise as well.

“We hope FedEx, which sponsors the name of the Washington NFL team's stadium and other sponsors of the Washington [Redskins], will step up and follow Adidas's lead,” Joel Barkin, a spokesman for Oneida Indian Nation told Al Jazeera. 

The Oneida Nation launched a campaign two years ago to pressure the Washington team to change its name.

Adidas is offering to give schools access to the company's design team for help with new logos and uniforms across all sports.

The company, whose North American headquarters is in Portland, Oregon, also said it will provide financial support to help schools afford the cost of such a change.

Some schools have previously argued that changing team names or mascots would cost too much. One California school superintendent estimated that changing the school’s nickname and mascot imagery on school property would cost between $700,000 and $1 million.

About 2,000 schools around the country have Native American mascots, according to the advocacy group, Change the Mascot. Around a dozen have dropped Native mascots over the past two years and another 20 are considering a change, the group said.

Some states have taken action. California Gov. Jerry Brown last month signed a law that prohibits schools from using the term “Redskins.”

In Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper recently ordered the creation of a commission to study the use of Native American mascots and come up with recommendations for possible legislation. In Oregon, the state Board of Education in 2012 ordered high schools to ban such mascots or risk losing public funding. The schools have until 2017 to comply. 

On the college level, the NCAA in 2005 warned schools that they would face sanctions if they didn't change Native American logos or names. Some colleges kept their nicknames by obtaining permission from tribes, including the Florida State Seminoles and the University of Utah Utes.

Eric Liedtke, the Adidas head of global brands who traveled to the conference in Washington, D.C., said the company's initiative “is a great way for us to offer up our resources to schools that want to do what's right.”

Al Jazeera and wire services. Philip J. Victor, reporting from New York, and Naureen Khan, from Washington D.C., contributed to this report