A Native American group opposed to “woke” culture is threatening legal action against a Long Island school district that plans to remove its longtime “Thunderbirds” team name — a move the group says sends a “dangerous message” and amounts to cultural erasure.
The Native American Guardians Association (NAGA) sent a sharply worded letter to the Connetquot School District, where the Thunderbirds mascot is on the chopping block amid New York State’s 2023 ban on Indigenous imagery and terms in school branding.
“Compliance with this regulation is not ‘progress’; it is cultural censorship and systemic racism,” the group wrote in a letter sent just before the school year began. NAGA warned that dropping the name would “commit the district to false and discriminatory representations about Native American culture.”
Far from being offensive, the group said, the name “Thunderbirds” honors strength, resilience, and heritage.
Legal Battle Intensifies
The mascot controversy escalated this summer after Connetquot, which had sued the New York Board of Regents to keep the name, quietly allocated more than $23 million for a rebrand. In July, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon opened a federal civil rights investigation into the district, saying the selective enforcement of mascot bans violated the Civil Rights Act.
In a statement to The Post, McMahon called preserving names like Thunderbirds and nearby Massapequa Chiefs a “top priority” for the Trump administration.
“We will not allow New York education leaders to continue violating the Civil Rights Act by inconsistently and unlawfully deeming some national-origin-based mascots as acceptable while determining others are not,” she said.
Backroom Deal Under Fire
The state and Connetquot reportedly floated a compromise: rebranding as the “T-Birds” — a nickname already in use — in exchange for dropping the lawsuit. Although T-Birds was initially included in the state’s ban, officials now appear willing to allow it.
But NAGA isn’t having it. The group warned it would take immediate legal action if the district finalizes the deal, calling it “illegal and immoral.”
“The District’s own court filings repeatedly acknowledge the Native origins of the Thunderbirds,” the letter read.
School board member Jacquelyn DiLorenzo accused her colleagues of sidelining community input and called the negotiations “blatant corruption.” According to DiLorenzo, district surveys show at least 60% of residents want to keep the Thunderbirds name.
“We keep asking and keep getting the same results,” she told The Post.
She also blasted the state for suddenly reversing its stance on the T-Birds nickname once federal pressure mounted.
Trump Weighs In
Recently retired board member Jaclyn Napolitano-Furno, who has filed her own lawsuit to restore the Thunderbirds name, accused the board of defying President Trump’s administration.
“Are you all essentially saying F-U to the President of the United States, Donald Trump?” she said during a recent meeting.
She condemned the board for pursuing a “backroom deal” with the state, despite McMahon’s findings of a Title VI violation.
Under growing pressure from figures like DiLorenzo and Napolitano-Furno — both mothers with children in the district — Connetquot has agreed to host a public forum on the issue this Thursday.
President Trump also addressed the controversy in a recent interview with One Nation host Brian Kilmeade.
“The state is fighting us very hard,” Trump said. “But I think we’ll be successful with it.”