[T]he Vermont Supreme Court has upheld the South Burlington School District’s decision not to put the contested matter of changing the school’s mascot to a districtwide vote.
In a ruling issued Friday, the Supreme Court concluded that “the District did not have a duty imposed by law to include the petitioned article in a district-wide vote.”
The school board voted in February 2017 to replace the school’s longtime mascot, the Rebels, due to its racist connotations, highlighted by yearbook photos from the 1960s featuring imagery of Southern Civil War battle flags. Opponents of the change argued that the mascot was not affiliated with the Confederate moniker and was part of the town’s history.
Residents who supported retaining the Rebels mascot circulated a petition last year, requesting that the School Board put the decision directly to South Burlington voters. Petitioners collected the signatures of 5 percent of registered voters in South Burlington, but the School Board denied the petition.
A group of South Burlington residents filed a lawsuit against the board with the Vermont Superior Court Chittenden Division, and the board subsequently filed a motion to dismiss.
In a ruling last December, Vermont Superior Court Judge Robert Mello wrote that by denying the petition, the board denied the petitioners’ right under Article 20 of the Vermont Constitution to “instruct their Representatives.”
The School Board filed an appeal that Mello upheld in January. He noted that the state Supreme Court had never previously examined the “right to instruct” clause.
In its Friday ruling, the Supreme Court disagreed with Mello’s interpretation of Article 20 as a “collective right.” The higher court concluded that the right to instruct is “an individual right and does not require the District to present a petitioned advisory article to voters.”
“Here, the item — the name of the District’s sports teams — that residents sought to include in a district-wide vote is not a matter within voters’ authority to decide at a district-wide meeting,” states the Supreme Court in its ruling.
As of last year, South Burlington’s high school mascot has officially switched to the Wolves.
