District, plaintiff try to resolve Ronan mascot issue

By Ethan Smith / Leader Staff

Both parties involved in the Ronan mascot issue moved a step closer this week to resolving whether the school district can use the Chiefs and Maidens to represent its student body, as they try to hash out a formal agreement that would end years of legal wrangling.

The Ronan School Board met with plaintiff Francine Dupuis and her attorney Monday behind closed doors, as both sides attempted to reach common ground with a mediator. Ronan superintendent Andy Holmlund said he hopes the two sides can finalize details of an agreement by week's end, although Dupuis said she didn't feel quite as optimistic about the situation following Monday's session.

Both parties emphasized that they can't predict how soon an agreement will be reached because each side has to sign off on it before it becomes official.

"I firmly believe it was a constructive meeting, and there was a free flow of conversation towards a successful resolution for both sides," Holmlund said Tuesday.

"My attorney met with them, and discussed a few things, and based on that you could say we made some progress, but I didn't come away with a positive feeling. To me, if we go into mediation, we should both come away happy, and I don't think that happened," Dupuis said Tuesday. "But I'll just have to see what a [proposed] final agreement says before I can say whether I'm happy with it."

Dupuis, of Pablo, filed suit against the district, claiming that the Chiefs and Maidens mascots were offensive and demeaning to Native Americans, and that those terms and related images shouldn't be used to represent sports teams. Following the meeting, she wasn't as optimistic as Holmlund was, but said she would like to reach an agreement with the district.

Last December, the state's Human Rights Bureau completed an investigation, and officials said there was sufficient reason to believe that Native American-themed mascots were derogatory. Both the school district and Dupuis were encouraged to come together and try to work something out, but were unable to.

Monday's meeting was an attempt to bring the two parties together, but it did nothing to diminish Dupuis' belief that the images are disrespectful to Native Americans.

"It's a racist mascot, it's morally wrong, and it doesn't do anything to honor our people," she said.

Monday's meeting was just one step in an overall process that could continue for months if the two sides can't hash out terms. The Human Rights Bureau has several stages of hearings, investigations and appeals that parties can go through before deciding to battle a situation out in court, but the meeting earlier this week was designed to prevent that from happening.

Despite the gulf between the two sides, Holmlund and Dupuis said reaching an agreement is in everyone's best interest.

"It is currently still in the Human Rights Bureau process. Both sides need to sign off on this for it to be finalized," Holmlund said, noting that he hoped an agreement could be reached by week's end.

Dupuis said it was premature to predict when a formal agreement could be reached, but said she would like to resolve the issue. She said she didn't know how much she'd spent on legal fees to date, but that it was well into the thousands of dollars.

"Until I see what the agreement actually says, I can't say whether I'll sign it," she said. "We'll just have to wait and see."