Reverting back to a team name that disparages Native Americans just doesn’t happen, but apparently it does when the Republicans install the onetime local leader of a neo-fascist group!

KILLINGLY, CT – A Republican-led school board that last November see a onetime Vice President of the local American Guard Chapter elected into their ranks approved a measure they made a focal issue in the campaign: reversing the decision to change their high school team’s name back to the racist “Redmen” moniker.

More than a dozen people, including students and Native American representatives, spoke out against returning to the original name that the high school used from 1939 to last year, with no one speaking in favor of it. Killingly Athletic Director Kevin Marcoux voiced concern over the decision saying that “Everywhere we go, we’re the laughing stock of the state.” Despite this, the vote was 5-4 in support of the reversal from the name adopted last October, the Red Hawks. The vote went along party lines, a victory for the Republicans, who made it a campaign promise to reverse the name change. The meeting was so contentious that at one point Board Chairman Craig Hanford, called the town’s attorney because he said he felt uncomfortable because the local CBS affiliate placed their microphone at his table. The microphones were eventually moved further from him.

Among those who was elected on that promise to vote for the reversal was Jason Muscara, 20, who was outed on Twitter in September as the Vice President of the Connecticut chapter of the American Guard, the neo-Fascist hate group founded by Brien James, who also founded the neo-Nazi Vinlander Social Club. Upon being exposed as a member, he said that he didn’t realize what kind of group it was and had left the group a year later. This is despite the fact that he appeared in the forefront of several rallies in the New England area representing the American Guard as one of its officers, one in Providence alongside Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson and Proud Boy member Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, both of whom face criminal charges stemming from violent altercations with antifa in Portland, Oregon.

1/ Meet Jason Muscara, a Killingly, CT Republican Town Committee for school board.

He's also Vice President of the CT American Guard, a hate group that the @ADL calls "hardcore white supremacists."

Jason works at @Walgreens in Dayville, CT.

Call them at 1-800-925-4733. pic.twitter.com/mClDVYPJI9

— AntiFash Gordon (@AntiFashGordon) September 26, 2019

In a letter to the Norwich Bulletin last summer, Muscara denied that the name “Redmen” was racist and indeed was a complimentary term. “Once considered a badge of honor, respect and courage, the name Redmen now is deemed by several within Killingly to be offensive,” he wrote. “Is there evidence to prove something offensive, or is being offended a state of mind for which there is no proof? Hence, a fact can be proven, a feeling cannot.” Like many ethnic slurs, the term “redmen” did not originate as an insulting one, but today indigenous tribes have decried it as such, and schools, such as the University of Massachusetts in 1972, Oklahoma’s Northeastern State University in 2006, Cedar High School in Cedar City, Utah last February, and two months later McGill University in Montana, have responded by dropping the name and associated mascot from its sports teams.

Despite Muscara’s insistence that he was no longer involved in an organization that he spent considerable time in as one of its leaders, it has been an issue from the moment he was exposed and many on Twitter reinforced that issue after the vote.

so killingly high, (in a known racist area in CT) voted to change its mascot back to redmen last night after switching to redhawks in july, with a “former” white supremacist now on the BOE. i didnt plan to speak but i felt like i needed to pic.twitter.com/TmXI0fu1V7

— jaxx mahomes (@jaxxblxck) January 9, 2020

The town of Killingly, CT BOE and the residents who voted for them are trash because they got mad the students decided to get rid of the racist mascot “Redmen” so they voted in a white supremacist and other racists to reinstate the mascot because it’s all they care about 🙃

— Muñeca Brava (@dangerous_krock) January 9, 2020

It’s shameful and sad. And It’s true—there is a white supremacist on the Killingly school board—recently elected. The ignorance is thick, and the pandering to the nostalgic white majority is unsettling; a sign of the times.

— Prof X (@ZornadoJ) January 9, 2020

Killingly town officials and Connecticut state officials need to step in. This is pathetic and embarrassing. Not sure how this Muscara guy got on the board of ed after being affiliated with a hate group, but he needs to go. https://t.co/zLEixIX4NR

— Maxwell Octigan (@radmaxoctigan) January 10, 2020

At the Wednesday meeting, the board also voted to appoint a subcommittee that would update the high school logo so it doesn’t “portray Native Americans in a negative stereotype.” The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation noted that this was not enough to resolve the issue. “Although we appreciate the Board of Education’s decision to establish a subcommittee to develop a Native American centered curriculum, we’re disappointed in their vote to reinstate the offensive Redmen mascot,” they wrote in a statement. “We support the sentiments shared by members of our Youth Council at yesterday’s hearing, and believe the mascot doesn’t honor or represent Native people and has no place in our school system. We urge the Board to rethink their decision.”