Woman Demands Public Schools Lower Iroquois Flag
by Jenni Parker and Jim Brown
November 25, 2003
(AgapePress) - A flag being flown in honor of five Indian tribes has sparked controversy in LaFayette, a town about 10 miles south of Syracuse. Here, near the border of the Onandaga Indian Nation -- the heart of the ancient Iroquois Confederacy that once spread across upstate New York -- a local woman is leading an uprising against an Indian flag.The Lafayette Central School District recently began flying the purple and white flag of the Iroquois Confederacy, which symbolizes the accord between the five historic tribes of the region: the Onandaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, and Mohawk "Indians." This was done partly in response to the long-held feeling of area American Indians that they were not being treated as equals in the non-Indian public schools.
But after some 30 years, the Indian community's complaint was finally addressed when the LaFayette School Board recently voted to raise the Iroquois flag outside a high school and elementary school in the district. Wendy Gonyea, an Indian parent whose son attends the high school, says members of the Onondaga community have been urging this "long overdue" action for decades, and she feels it will pull people together because it "recognizes the community's diversity and gives the Onondagas respect."
District officials felt flying the Iroquois flag at the same height as the American flag would help non-Indian students develop a greater respect for the culture and heritage of Indian students, and would be a positive gesture honoring the community's cultural richness and heritage.
But Jean Schneible, a mother of three who has lived in the district for seventeen years, says the school is giving preferential treatment to a minority group. According to an Associated Press report, Schneible contends that flying the flag effectively segregates and makes a special class of the Indian students. "It makes our kids separate. I thought we were all Americans," she says.
Schneible wants the board's action put to a public vote. "I think that what they've done is wrong," she says, adding, "they need to allow the taxpaying citizens in the community to voice their opinion . . . [because] school is considered public property, and public property is owned by the taxpayers."
Schneible collected more than 100 signatures protesting the raising of the Iroquois banner. After the measure passed, she sent the petition to the school board, asking that the Iroquois flag be flown lower than the American flag, since "it's a reservation flag, not a nation[al] flag," she says.
But LaFayette school superintendent Mike Mondanaro points out that the district has complied with the law in flying the flags at equal heights, with the American flag in the prominent position on the left. He feels strongly that flying the Iroquois flag is the right thing to do and should have been done long before now; and he says the gesture should ensure that American Indian students are treated more equitably in the future. He told the AP, "This has to do with cultural diversity, about respecting differences and honoring our history. This community shares a unique relationship with the Onondagas."
But Schneible feels the district has a long history of giving the Indians preferential treatment. She says once Indian students pulled her daughter's hair and called her names on the bus, but no one was disciplined in that incident. The mother is continuing to lead public protests against the district's decision and has considered running for a seat on the school board, or possibly filing a lawsuit.
"The fight's far from over," Schneible says, "and just because they're flying their flag today doesn't mean it's going to stay there." The LaFayette woman is urging the community members backing her to continue fighting alongside her to "make the state -- or whoever we have to make -- have [the district officials] lower the flag below the American flag."
Roughly 23 percent of LaFayette's 1,100 students are Native American Indians.
