Utah School District Rejects Cougar As Mascot As “Insensitive To Women”
jonathanturley
School officials in Canyons School District Utah appear to be watching too much Sex in the City. The school officials wanted to pick a mascot for the new Corner Canyon High School and pushed the students to accept the ultra-lame “Chargers.” The students balked and instead picked the Cougars, but Principal Mary Bailey and the school district barred the names as “insensitive to women.”
Bailey said the term makes it sound like their mascot is a sexually aggressive middle-aged woman. Of course, a few people might conclude that it is one of the “mountain lions inhabit territory all across Utah.” A search on the Internet shows dozens of schools on every level, including Brigham Young University, with the cougar as their mascot. It is shocking to learn that they are all rooting for Courteney Cox (above).
Of course, even if the students meant the mascot to refer to human cougars, it may make for an apt mascot. They are aggressive, cunning, and have a habitat stretching around the world.
Returning to that other cougar, I fail to see why the entire Puma concolor population should be converted into a dirty word simply because of a slang term. I also fail to see how these officials assume a dirty meaning when they live in an area with cougars. They should reverse this decision before the students propose the former mascot of the Colorado School of Mines . . . the Jackass. It could be viewed as an insensitive reference to local school officials.
