{"id":6557,"date":"2025-04-09T09:40:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T14:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=6557"},"modified":"2025-04-09T09:40:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T14:40:13","slug":"bill-banning-dwarfism-slur-as-mascot-passes-illinois-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/6557-bill-banning-dwarfism-slur-as-mascot-passes-illinois-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Banning Dwarfism Slur as Mascot Passes Illinois House"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>By BRIDGETTE FOX<br \/>\nCapitol News Illinois<br \/>\nbfox@capitolnewsillinois.com  <\/p>\n<p>SPRINGFIELD \u2014 The House passed a bill Tuesday that would ban public schools from using mascots that discriminate against people with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, if signed into law, currently would affect just one high school in St. Clair County.<\/p>\n<p>Freeburg Community High School\u2019s mascot, the \u201cMidgets,\u201d is considered a slur used against people with dwarfism.<\/p>\n<p>The school\u2019s administration did not reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Under House Bill 3527, the school could continue using \u201cuniforms or other materials\u201d it bought before the bill was passed until Sept. 1, 2028, as long as it already picked a new mascot, according to the bill\u2019s language. The bill doesn\u2019t clarify what repercussions, if any, the school would face if it didn\u2019t change its mascot.<\/p>\n<p>The bill passed through the House on Tuesday with a vote of 71-38.<\/p>\n<p>The mascot was chosen during the 1930s when a reporter coined the term because the tallest member of the basketball team was just 5 feet, 10 inches tall, according to the school\u2019s website. <\/p>\n<p>The bill\u2019s main sponsor, Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford, said the name was chosen during a time when freak shows, the exhibitions of human \u201cabnormalities,\u201d were popular. <\/p>\n<p>School alumni, members of the Freeburg community, along with activists and organizations, filed almost 1,000 \u201cwitness slips\u201d to the General Assembly for and against the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Opponents said the school\u2019s mascot is a tradition, and there aren\u2019t any students with dwarfism in the school who might be affected by the mascot.<\/p>\n<p>However, Shelby Holloway, a woman with dwarfism and a national advocate and co-director of Mascots Matter, said students at Freeburg aren\u2019t the only ones affected by its mascot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a statewide issue, and it deserves a statewide solution,\u201d said Holloway during a March 20 committee meeting. \u201cThe Freeburg mascot does not just affect the students who attend that school. Every time a Freeburg sports team travels, its mascot&#8217;s name is displayed in the schools across Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Kevin Schmidt, R-Millstadt, represents Freeburg and argued against the bill Tuesday on the House floor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a local issue. The local school board should be voting on it, not the state overreaching and saying, \u2018You&#8217;re wrong,\u2019\u201d Schmidt said. \u201cYou don&#8217;t understand the community, you don&#8217;t understand the history. It&#8217;s our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt and other opponents said the school board should be in charge of changing the mascot name, and the General Assembly is infringing on other governing bodies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think this would certainly be obvious that it would be a slam down yes vote for everyone because it is important that we respect people with disabilities,\u201d said Rep. Amy Elik, R-Godfrey, during the committee meeting. \u201cBut the fact that it is geared towards one community in Illinois from advocates outside of Illinois makes this really uncomfortable for all of us, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bill still has to go through the Senate.<br \/>\n\u202f<br \/>\n<em>Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.  <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BRIDGETTE FOX Capitol News Illinois bfox@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD \u2014 The House passed a bill Tuesday that would ban public schools from using mascots that discriminate against people with disabilities. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bill Banning Dwarfism Slur as Mascot Passes Illinois House - Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader, 979XFM and KJ Country 102.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/6557-bill-banning-dwarfism-slur-as-mascot-passes-illinois-house\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill Banning Dwarfism Slur as Mascot Passes Illinois House - 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