For more than a year, some students, faculty and residents have pushed to change the Rebels name because of its associations with the Confederacy and thus slavery, highlighted by yearbook photos from the 1960s featuring imagery of Southern Civil War battle flags.
Those efforts prompted an outpouring from residents who support changing the team moniker and those who want to keep it, most recently at a Feb. 1 board meeting where members voted unanimously to drop the Rebels name.
Two Facebook groups have cropped up to organize those who disagree with the decision: We are S.B. Rebels and Rebel Alliance.
South Burlington resident Marcy Brigham created a Change.org petition stating that, “We, the students, families and tax payers, do not want the Board to change the school nickname. We identify as Rebels in the traditional definition of the word. Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for something that was not agreed upon by the majority of residents.”
An anonymous comment on the petition — since deleted from it — triggered a news release from school board Chair Patrick Leduc on Monday denouncing online communications that “threaten the safety and well-being of any member of our community and student body.”
In an interview Wednesday, Leduc said he is not aware of any specific threat to the community or any individual. He said the comment on the petition was “racist, hateful and very derogatory,” making reference to “lynching.”
Leduc said that overall the community dialogue on changing the Rebels name has been respectful.
“Ninety percent of the emails I’ve received have been respectful and appropriate, just voicing different opinions,” he said. “There’s a few people I’d prefer they didn’t use the language they use, but such is life.”
Brigham said many people in South Burlington have a strong connection to the Rebels name, which she said has helped create lasting bonds in the community.
“We have not and do not associate our nickname with racism, the Confederacy, or the heinous actions of a mentally challenged person in South Carolina,” Brigham said in a Facebook message to VTDigger, referring to white supremacist Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people at a historically black church.
Brigham said she does not discount the images of Confederate battle flags from the 1960s and 1970s, but she said “we have grown as a community and disassociated with that long ago.”
The board and the school district didn’t do enough to gather community input before voting to change the name, Brigham said. The name change is likely to cost taxpayer money, Brigham said, which she described as “a violation of our rights.”
Others posting on Facebook expressed a less nuanced aversion to a name change, deriding it as overbearing political correctness.
“Now these folks will not be quivering in fear at night about some crazed Rebel chasing them around the bedroom. I hope this will get my slaves to simmer down,” someone wrote on the South Burlington Alumni page under the name Lance Revlin.
In addition to her online petition, which had 685 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon, Brigham is circulating a survey about the name change that she said she will submit to the school board.
Brigham is also helping to circulate petitions seeking to get two items placed on a ballot for a citywide referendum. One seeks to prohibit the use of public money to change the name of South Burlington High School athletic teams to anything other than the Rebels. The other would make “The South Burlington Rebels” the name for all sports teams districtwide.
South Burlington city attorney Andrew Bolduc said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the legality of a citizen petition prior to it being filed with the city clerk.
It’s too late for the questions to be placed on the March Town Meeting Day ballot, but if 5 percent of city voters sign a ballot item petition, it would trigger a special election.
There were 13,940 registered voters in South Burlington at the time of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Five percent would mean roughly 700 signatures.
As it stands, South Burlington will officially discontinue using the Rebels name in August. Leduc said there will be an inclusive process to select the new name. He expects a new name will be chosen before the 2017-2018 school year.
