A group of activists from across the country has filed formal complaints against Freeburg High School, alleging that its controversial mascot is breaking the law, which could force the school to find a new moniker after it has rejected requests in the past.
Freeburg has been the “Midgets” for 90 years. Many people with dwarfism now consider the term a slur.
This fall, a grassroots group led by adults with dwarfism and parents of children with dwarfism in western and southern states lodged complaints against Freeburg High School with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, among other oversight agencies, according to group leader Rachel Wherley.
The group, Mascots Matter, is accusing Freeburg High School of violating federal anti-discrimination law by creating an environment that is hostile to people with disabilities.
The Office for Civil Rights has not yet committed to conducting an investigation of Freeburg, according to Wherley. She said Mascots Matter continues to share information with the agency as it evaluates its complaints.
Wherley provided the Belleville News-Democrat with copies of emails she has sent to Freeburg High School District 77 officials since October asking them to consider changing the mascot.
She explained to them that people regularly use the term to mock her because she has achondroplasia dwarfism. And she shared examples of what she feels are condescending and dismissive comments from Freeburg students on Mascots Matter’s social media videos about its advocacy including “You are not real. Just shut up.” and “I’m scared of midgets.”
“We are called this term every day and it is not a mistake; the intention is to put us down,” Wherley said in an interview with the BND. “... It’s up to Freeburg to determine whether the story is written that they identify the harm this causes our disability group or whether they will continue to exclude our group and defend the mascot.”
School district officials have not responded to the group’s emails except to say that privacy laws prevent them from sharing details about any discipline or actions taken with students posting online comments.
District 77 Superintendent Sarah Gass declined the BND’s interview requests, instead providing a statement acknowledging the district knows about the Mascots Matter campaign and its concerns.
Gass stated that on Jan. 8, she met virtually with co-directors Wherley and Shelby Holloway, who also has achondroplasia dwarfism. The superintendent did not answer questions from the BND about what the district will do in response to the group’s complaints and request to retire the mascot.
Freeburg District 77 school board members also did not respond to the BND’s request for comment about their position on changing the mascot.
The mascot comes from a sports writer’s nickname for the school’s 1934 basketball team, which became an underdog success story when it beat an undefeated team, according to the school’s website.
Today, the school logo is a caricature of a man with a black eye wearing boxing gloves.
Previous calls to change rejected
Freeburg previously resisted calls to change the mascot 10 years ago, when members of the Little People of America organization told the school board that they find it derogatory, objectifying and dehumanizing.
“We have no plans to make any changes,” school board member Dean Gauch said during a public meeting at the time, when he was the board president.
Internal district emails from that time between former Superintendent Andrew Lehman and Principal Jill Jung, who was then the assistant principal, suggested that the school board included “vocal die hard ‘Midgets.’” The administrators had more nuanced feelings about the mascot.
Members of Mascots Matter obtained the emails through public records requests and shared copies with the BND.
In the emails, Lehman asked Jung and others for advice as he considered telling the school board whether he thought the mascot should be changed or not.
“And that’s assuming I can even make up my mind on the question,” Lehman wrote. He did not disclose any opinion he may have reached in the emails.
“This is a no win situation,” Jung wrote in response to Lehman. “I do not mean to come off as sounding selfish, but I wish there was a legal mandate that would take this decision out of our hands. I like tradition, but not at the expense of others. Especially concerning that we have much more serious issues to handle.”
Jung did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
Complaints face challenging road ahead
If the Office for Civil Rights decides to take up an investigation in Freeburg, it may want to survey the school community to see how it feels about the mascot because an outside group filed the complaint, according to Jennifer Smith, a Chicago education lawyer and member of the Illinois Council of School Attorneys.
Freeburg is a small town of about 4,600 people and is described on the school’s website as conservative. The high school has about 660 students on average, based on enrollment data from the past five years.
The last time disability advocates raised the issue in 2015, supporters of the mascot from the community showed up in droves to a school board meeting wearing shirts and holding signs urging “save the Midget.”
Elsewhere in the U.S., support for Wichita North High School’s “Redskins” mascot from the school community, including Native American students, led the Office for Civil Rights to determine the name did not create a hostile environment when it investigated a complaint against the school 28 years ago.
A similar complaint filed by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights was also unsuccessful in 2013 — 10 years after the Michigan State Board of Education adopted a resolution calling for the removal of Native American mascots — because the complaint did not give the Office for Civil Rights any specific examples of students or individuals who were harmed by those mascots.
The Wichita school board ultimately decided to drop its mascot after a school-commissioned study in 2021 determined the term, which was first used by Native Americans to describe themselves, turned into a derogatory slur.
And in Michigan, the Native American Heritage Fund has been donating money to schools for the last seven years to encourage them to change their mascots by covering the costs to do so, including new signage, floors and apparel.
Office for Civil Rights investigations can take several years to complete. That means incoming Republican President Donald Trump could also create roadblocks for Mascots Matter’s complaints, according to William Goren, a disability rights lawyer and consultant who worked in Chicago and Springfield before moving to Georgia.
“The question here would be in light of the new administration, will their priorities change so they’ll redirect resources to other matters that they’re more interested in?” Goren said.
Smith, the education lawyer, noted that Trump has gone as far as promising to get rid of the education department. But policy experts say the president is unlikely to pull it off.
Advocates gain over 10,000 supporters
Mascots Matter’s leaders say they are confident in the case it is making to the Office for Civil Rights despite unsuccessful complaints about Native American mascots and Freeburg’s fierce support of the mascot in the past.
One of the leaders of the group, Erin Elswood, is a licensed school counselor who previously served as a coordinator ensuring schools comply with disability law. She is also the mother of a child with dwarfism.
Elswood researched case law that she said supports making an argument about discrimination against a group — people with disabilities, generally — rather than identifying an individual who has been harmed.
They are trying to drum up support on social media, including promoting a petition with over 10,000 signatures in support of the change in Freeburg and at four other Midwestern high schools whose mascots are also the “Midgets.”
“By clinging to a slur that is widely recognized as offensive to those living with a genetic anomaly, these schools and their school boards continue to foster a culture of exclusion and disrespect,” the petition states. “The continued use of this outdated and offensive term also sends a dangerous message to students: that tradition and nostalgia are more important than respect and dignity for all.
“However, by acting to retire the ‘Midget’ mascot, these schools have the opportunity to lead by example, choosing respect over tradition and promoting inclusion, equity, and understanding. The stakes are high, not just for the Little People community but for the values we instill in the next generation.”
The group is currently raising money for its members to travel to voice their concerns at local school board meetings and to open a dialogue with students and community members. Money from the fundraiser may also be used toward legal support for the group and educational materials they want to distribute in the communities.
Mascots Matter leaders also raised their concerns about Freeburg’s mascot with the Illinois State Board of Education at its December meeting. But the state board will not be intervening on the issue.
Agency spokesperson Jackie Matthews said in a statement to the BND that the board does not have statutory authority over school district mascots.
What it takes to change a school mascot
State Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford, is leading an effort in Illinois to pass legislation around school mascots.
He filed bills in 2020, 2024 and 2025 to ban Native American mascots. He also tried to get the Illinois State Board of Education to estimate what it would cost to change a mascot through a House resolution. So far, none of his efforts have been adopted.
The Mascots Matter campaign reached out to West about the possibility of crafting similar legislation for people with disabilities, according to Holloway, one of the co-directors. West did not respond to the BND’s request for comment.
Like Freeburg, Hurley School District in Wisconsin faced the decision to change its mascot from the “Midgets” in 2019.
The Hurley school board chose to replace it with a student-selected name, the “Northstars,” at a cost to the district of less than $1,000 thanks in part to community donations, according to District Administrator Kevin Genisot. He said the biggest hurdle was getting the community on board.
“It comes with very, very strong feelings,” Genisot said.
He thinks it was especially heightened in Hurley because the school board initially promised to put the issue to a community vote. But it went forward without a referendum because board members thought it was good for the school, and the community felt they were lied to, according to Genisot.
Afterward, all five Hurley school board members were either voted out of office or did not run again because they knew they would be voted out.
“Laying out a clear process and sticking to it is really critical in making it successful,” Genisot said of the lessons learned. “... You want this to go smooth and keep the focus on kids. What’s best for them in the future?”
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Lexi Cortes is a reporter for the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
