Survey says: Most students, staff and community members want to keep the Dickinson Public School District’s midget mascot, regardless of what the Little People of America think about it.

Representatives from the LPA trekked to Dickinson, North Dakota last month to ask the school board to reconsider the district’s nearly 100-year-old midget mascot, alleging the word dredges up negative connotations for the vertically challenged, the Grand Forks Herald reports.

“I want to make it clear, we’re not here to come and force you to change. We’re not trying to force anything upon you. We just really want to give you our perspective and our point of view,” LPA rep Samantha Rayburn-Trubyk said at the December school board meeting.

“You can make the decision on your own,” she said.

School officials crafted a district-wide survey to do just that, and on Monday the school board released the results that showed the majority aren’t interested in ditching the midgets to appease the little people, reaffirming the community’s long-running resistance to the change.

Of the 4,644 responses from the community, 65 percent opposed a name change and 35 supported it.

Those who wanted to keep the midgets included 63.4 percent of middle schoolers, 68 percent of high schoolers, 51.2 percent of staff, and 65 percent of community members who participated, the Herald reports.

“There is no indication the board will take further steps,” according to KFYR.

That’s probably a wise decision, if board members value their positions.

In 1996, the Associated Press wrote about the “politically correct school board ousted for dumping Midget mascot.”

“I understand that people are desperately clinging to what they have known in the past, but the mascot is not appropriate,” Diane Melbye, one of three Dickinson board members recalled that year, told the news service.

The school board dumped the midget nickname without public input, a decision that was ultimately reversed after voters weighed in.

According to the 1996 AP report:

The school’s teams used to be called the Coyotes, but that changed when a sportswriter in the 1920s called the basketball team ‘our midgets.’

The LPA in 2010 contacted then board president Dean Rummel to ask the district to revisit the mascot and Rummel put the topic up for discussion, but the proposal didn’t gain traction. Some of the same folks who led the charge against the 1996 name change were on the board in 2010, according to The Dickinson Press.

“They felt that not enough had changed to bring that back up and take that to a vote again,” Rummel said. “There wasn’t enough support to make that change or to initiate a study as to what could be done.”

The situation is part of the LPA’s mission to rid America of midget mascots, which the organization dedicated to dwarfism claims is derogatory to its members. The LPA itself was initially known as the Midgets of America when it was founded by actor Billy Barty in 1957, but changed the name to Dwarfs and Midgets of America in 1960.

The organization doesn’t discuss that history on its website, obscuring when it transitioned to the LPA.

Regardless, the group’s advocacy has effectively whittled down the number of schools nationwide with midget mascots to single digits, with the most recent change at Sonoma, California’s Hurley High School last year.

“We know it is difficult to let go of a long tradition, and wish to commend the School Board members for making this brave decision,” the LPA wrote in statement after the Hurley school district opted to ditch its mascot on January 21, 2019. “We are excited for the children of the Hurley to begin a new era of school and community spirit with a mascot that embodies the dignity and honor of Hurley that all can be proud of and cheer for.

“With Hurley’s decision, there are still five schools in the United States that use ‘Midgets’ as their mascot,” the LPA wrote. “The term is considered highly derogatory and offensive to the dwarfism community. Originally developed in the side-show era, the term has evolved over the years into an objectifying word denying those of short stature the dignity deserved of all individuals.”