By PHILIP MARCELO

MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. (AP) — As a high school hockey player, Adam Drexler wore his Massapequa Chiefs jersey with pride.

But as the Chickasaw Nation member grew up and learned about his Indigenous roots, he came to see the school’s mascot — a stereotypical Native American man wearing a headdress — as problematic.

Now his Long Island hometown has become the latest flashpoint in the enduring debate over the place of Indigenous imagery in American sports: The Trump administration launched an investigation Friday into whether New York officials are discriminating against Massapequa by threatening to withhold funding. The town has refused to comply with a state mandate to retire Native American sports names and mascots.

“There was no tribe east of the Mississippi that ever wore a headdress — ever,” said Drexler, 60, who was adopted and raised by a white Jewish family. “How can you argue for a symbol that has no significance or relevance here, while at the same time claiming you honor and respect the culture and history of the people this town is named after?”

It’s hard to miss the Native American imagery around Massapequa, a coastal hamlet 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Manhattan where roughly 90% of the residents are white.

The Chiefs logo is prominently featured on signs adorning school, police and fire department buildings. Students in recent years even painted a colorful mural with the logo and team name on a commercial building next to the high school in protest of change to the mascot.

A few minutes drive away, next to the town’s post office, a statue of a Native American figure wearing a flowing headdress towers over those depicting a buffalo, a horse and a totem pole.

“When you think of Massapequa, you think of the Chiefs,” said Forrest Bennett, a 15-year-old high school sophomore.

A town at odds with state policy

New York has been trying to rid schools of Native American mascots going back more than two decades to the administration of Republican Gov. George Pataki, and in 2022 gave districts until the end of the school year to commit to replacing them.

Massapequa was among four school districts on Long Island that filed a federal suit challenging the ban, arguing their choice of team names and mascots were protected by the First Amendment, but a judge dismissed the case last month.

Related Articles

Trump administration cuts $1 billion in school mental health grants, citing conflict of priorities

Trump administration retreats from 100% withholding on Social Security clawbacks

About that hug … Whitmer risks backlash from Democrats as she embraces Trump in Michigan

Weak GDP report tied to tariffs has Trump trying to blame Biden on the state of the economy

Immigrants who came to the Texas Panhandle to work legally have been told they must leave

Districts could seek exemption from the state mandates if they gained approval from a Native American tribe, but state officials say Massapequa instead “stayed silent” for years.

A spokesperson for the school board said Wednesday that it intends to appeal the judge’s ruling. The board also lauded the investigation by the federal education agency, which President Donald Trump has moved to dismantle in recent weeks.

Trump, for his part, has made frequent visits to Long Island in recent years as the suburban region has shifted Republican. Last spring, he visited Massapequa to attend the wake of a New York City police officer.

“Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population,” Trump wrote in a recent social media post. Days later he posed with a Massapequa Chiefs sweater in the Oval Office. “I don’t see the Kansas City Chiefs changing their name anytime soon!”

The NFL’s Chiefs have stuck with their name despite years of protest from some Native American activists. Five years ago, the team barred fans from wearing headdresses or face paint referencing Native American culture.

Meanwhile other professional teams, including football’s Washington Redskins ( now Commanders ) and baseball’s Cleveland Indians ( now Guardians ), have adopted new monikers and logos.

Residents say mascot ‘honors’ Native Americans

Along the eateries and shops next to Massapequa High, students and parents insisted the team name and mascot are meant to honor the Massapequa, who were part of the broader Lenape, or Delaware people who inhabited the woodlands of the Northeastern U.S. and Canada for thousands of years before being decimated by European colonization.

“It’s not that we’re trying to do anything disrespectful,” said Christina Zabbatino, a mother of two. “Actually, I would be honored if it was my face, you know what I mean?”

Lucas Rumberg, a 15-year-old sophomore, shrugged off criticism that the school logo reflects the traditional garb of a Midwest tribe and not the attire worn by the Lenape people eventually forced to move farther and farther west by colonial settlers and then American government forces as the nation expanded.

“Even though it’s not necessarily what they look like here, I feel like it still conveys that we are respectful of Native Americans,” Rumberg said. “I get that people might be offended by it, but I just feel that it’s been here so long that it should stay.”

Native Americans say mascot is dehumanizing

But that dismissive attitude is precisely why stereotypical mascots are offensive, argues Joseph Pierce, director of Native American and Indigenous studies at Stony Brook University, also on Long Island.

“It is as if this image were a shorthand for any and all Indians,” the Cherokee Nation citizen said. “And that reduces us to a type, rather than portray us as distinct peoples.”

Indian mascots also contribute to the view that Native peoples are relics of the past, and not living communities facing urgent threats today, says Joey Fambrini, a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians who works for the New York Indian Council, a nonprofit providing health care to Native Americans.

“That dehumanization isn’t harmless: It directly contributes to why our struggles are ignored or minimized,” the 29-year-old Brooklyn resident said, noting that tribal communities endure high rates of poverty, inadequate housing, lack of clean water and limited education access, among other challenges.

The cheerful mascot also obscures Massapequa’s grim legacy of violence against Native Americans, says John Kane, a member of the Mohawk tribe of upstate New York who has pushed districts across the state for years to change their names and mascots.

The town, after all, was the site of a massacre in which scores of Native men, women and children were killed by Europeans in the 1600s, he said.

“They’re not trying to honor us. That’s why accuracy of the logo doesn’t matter to them,” Kane said. “So the idea that this is some sort of honor to us? I mean, come on. It’s an absurd proposition to even suggest.”

By DAVID McHUGH

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Europe’s economy grew more strongly in the first three months of the year, only to see hopes for an ongoing recovery quickly squelched by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.

Related Articles

Vietnam celebrates 50 years since war’s end with focus on peace and unity

UK military launches airstrikes with US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels

North Korea’s Kim watches missile test-firings from country’s first destroyer

Who are the contenders to be pope? They include a theologian, a diplomat and a simple street priest

Pakistan says it has ‘credible intelligence’ India will attack within days

Gross domestic product in the 20 eurozone countries grew 0.4% in the first quarter, improving on 0.2% growth in the last part of 2024, according to official figures released Wednesday by European Union statistics agency Eurostat.

But on April 2, just two days after the end of the quarter, Trump announced an onslaught of new tariffs on almost every U.S. trading partner and hit goods imported from the EU with a 20% tariff rate. That has led to widespread downgrading of Europe’s growth outlook for the year since its economy is heavily dependent on exports and the U.S. is its largest single export destination.

Although Trump has announced a 90-day pause on what he calls his “reciprocal” tariffs — so named because they are based on how he feels other countries have been treating the U.S. —prospects that the EU can strike a bargain to reduce the 20% figure are highly uncertain.

Meanwhile, other tariffs — such as a 25% rate on steel and aluminum and on cars, both of them for all trading partners, including Europe, remain in place. The costs of tariffs are paid by the companies that import European goods such as cars and pharmaceuticals, which then have to decide whether to swallow the costs or pass them on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

As a result, indicators of business and consumer optimism in Europe have fallen. The European Commission’s economic sentiment indicator sagged to 93.6 in March, its lowest level since December. That drop in sentiment is “another illustration of how the last four weeks of tariff tensions and uncertainty have entirely wiped out the tentative return of optimism in the eurozone,” said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING bank.

“Unless there are major changes in U.S. trade policy, sentiment as well as economic activity in the eurozone will remain subdued over the coming months,” Brzeski said.

Before Trump’s announcement, hopeful signs had included a strong job market, with unemployment low at 6.1% and consumers beginning to spend more after several years of holding back because of inflation.

With inflation down to 2.2%, the European Central Bank has been lowering the cost of credit for consumers and businesses by cutting its benchmark interest rate seven times in its current easing cycle, most recently by a quarter of a percentage point on April 17.

On top of that, the German parliament has approved a 500-billion euro ($570 billion) investment fund that’s exempt from the country’s constitutional limits on debt. That decision by the incoming coalition of the center-right Union bloc and the Social Democrats has raised hopes of additional spending on pro-growth infrastructure over the coming years.

However, Trump’s tariffs have lowered expectations for Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy and its economic problem child. The outgoing government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz lowered its growth estimate for this year to zero after two previous years of declining output. Parliament is expected to elect center-right Union leader Friedrich Merz as chancellor on May 6 in the wake of a Feb. 23 national election.

By COLLIN BINKLEY, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is moving to cancel $1 billion in school mental health grants, saying they reflect the priorities of the previous administration.

Related Articles

Roberts might hold key Supreme Court vote over 1st publicly funded religious charter school

St. Paul school board gathers feedback on budget, including proposed cuts

Harvard pledges reforms following internal reports on antisemitism and anti-Arab bias

Can public money flow to Catholic charter school? The Supreme Court will decide

Trump administration launches race-based discrimination investigations against Harvard Law Review

Grant recipients were notified Tuesday that the funding will not be continued after this year. A gun violence bill signed by Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022 sent $1 billion to the grant programs to help schools hire more psychologists, counselors and other mental health workers.

A new notice said an Education Department review of the programs found they violated the purpose of civil rights law, conflicted with the department’s policy of prioritizing merit and fairness, and amounted to an inappropriate use of federal money.

The cuts were made public in a social media post from conservative strategist Christopher Rufo, who claimed the money was used to advance “left-wing racialism and discrimination.” He posted excerpts from several grant documents setting goals to hire certain numbers of nonwhite counselors or pursue other diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

“No more slush fund for activists under the guise of mental health,” Rufo wrote.

The Education Department confirmed the cuts. In an update to members of Congress that was obtained by The Associated Press, department officials said the Republican administration will find other ways to support mental health.

“The Department plans to re-envision and re-compete its mental health program funds to more effectively support students’ behavioral health needs,” according to the notice.

President Donald Trump’s administration has cut billions of dollars in federal grants deemed to be related to DEI and has threatened to cut billions more from schools and colleges over diversity practices. The administration says any policy that treats people differently because of their race amounts to discrimination, and it argues that DEI has often been used to discriminate against white and Asian American students.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By Laura Alviž and Paula Doenecke, Bloomberg News

Universities on both sides of the Atlantic were under intense pressure to deal with campus conflict over political issues long before the Trump administration started cracking down on higher education.

In the past three years, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war on Gaza, prompted by a Hamas attack, have led to student protests around the world and put university administrators in the uncomfortable position of having to take political positions – or try their best not to.

“These days, there is hardly a crisis that doesn’t hit the campus with unbridled force,” said Ulrich Rüdiger, rector of RWTH Aachen, one of Germany’s top research universities.

Pro-Palestinian activists sit in front of tents set up at the university campus of the Free University of Berlin, Germany, on May 7, 2024, as they demonstrate against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip which was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack. According to local media reports, activists set up a protest camp with tents in a courtyard of the… (Tobias Schwarz/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS)

In countries like Switzerland and Germany, universities have generally tried to stay neutral, which has in turn raised questions about whether that’s a realistic goal, and what such neutrality might be in service of.

At the beginning of March, ETH Zurich received a questionnaire from the Trump administration asking whether a research project that receives US funding was in line with new government policies on diversity, equity and inclusion. The university, which has received about $2.5 million on average over the last 10 years from the US government, decided not to respond, according to ETH Zurich spokesperson Vanessa Bleich. Later in March, the university announced that it would not make official statements on geopolitical issues.

Switzerland guarantees freedom of research and teaching. At the same time, Swiss universities have to abide by laws restricting the export of technologies that can have both civil and military applications, including those designed in universities. As a result, ETH Zurich announced last year that it would increase scrutiny in the admission of foreign students, especially from China. The decision was denounced by students and researchers, including some who described the policy as in conflict with the country’s geopolitical neutrality.

In Germany, where the most universities are financed by the government, institutions have to be politically neutral when it comes to party politics, and follow German law. But that’s the extent of it – universities are free to take stands when not doing so would threaten their functioning, and they are allowed to uphold values enshrined in the country’s constitution, a policy that allows for broad interpretation.

Often, these actions are relatively uncontroversial. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, universities in Constance, Halle and Cologne, among others, issued statements expressing solidarity with Ukraine. The following year, the Technical University of Dresden campaigned for their research fellow, economist Gubad Ibadoghlu, to be released from prison in Azerbaijan. In early 2024, the HRK, an organization that represents Germany’s university rectors, called on the country’s scientific community to stand against discrimination in response to a secret meeting between members of the far-right AfD party and neo-Nazi sympathizers.

Related Articles

Vietnam celebrates 50 years since war’s end with focus on peace and unity

UK military launches airstrikes with US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels

North Korea’s Kim watches missile test-firings from country’s first destroyer

Who are the contenders to be pope? They include a theologian, a diplomat and a simple street priest

Pakistan says it has ‘credible intelligence’ India will attack within days

Israel’s war in Gaza, however, has complicated matters. As universities around the world have erupted in protest, German institutions have been influenced by the so-called reason of state doctrine, which mandates that the country defend and preserve the state of Israel. Consequently, many German universities have held fast to partnerships with Israeli universities, and in some cases, doubled down on them.

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, a German research university that considers itself politically neutral, said in March it was going to intensify its relationships with Tel Aviv University, the University of Haifa and Hasoub, an Arab-Israeli innovation center. KIT does not want to “exclude or separate itself,” but rather foster dialogue, the university said.

German society at large is more critical of Israel’s actions. A ZDF Politbarometer survey, one of Germany’s most important opinion polls, indicates that already in early 2024, only 18% of respondents still believed Israel’s military activity in Gaza was justified and 87% wanted Western governments to increase pressure on the Jewish state to ensure that aid reaches civilians.

As the government has taken additional steps to defend Israel under the banner of fighting antisemitism, questions have been raised about how far is too far. Last November, the HRK pushed back against news that Germany’s parliament intended to call out the country’s higher education sector for failing to act more decisively against antisemitism. The rectors’ organization called the move “objectively not necessary” and “not useful against the backdrop of university autonomy and academic freedom.” Three months later, the Bundestag passed a resolution calling on universities to take stronger stands against antisemitism.

While she thinks universities should try to steer clear of taking geopolitical positions, Jutta Günther, the rector of the University of Bremen, believes no one should be prevented from standing up for Germany’s constitution, the Basic Law. “We are not neutral towards the Basic Law, we are committed to it. It is the foundation that guarantees freedom of research and teaching in the first place,” she said. In an article Günther wrote for a German science and education website, she appealed to the scientific community to fight for democracy at a moment in which it is under attack.

Such actions are important, said Jonathan Dreusch, the political secretary at the German National Union of Students, but he cautioned that political stands must be taken organically, and not in response to outside pressures. “Universities must not become pawns. And this also includes instrumentalizing them for short-term political purposes, even with the best of intentions,” he said.

©2025 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.