Canada’s Simon Fraser University dumped its former team name, The Clansmen, and has announced that its official replacement will be the Red Leafs, according to the CBC.
Even though the original “Clansmen” name was an allusion to Scottish clans in honor of its namesake — Scottish explorer and fur trader Simon Fraser — in 2020, left-wing professors and students petitioned to change the name for fear that it sounded too much like the Ku Klux Klan, although the two are spelled differently.
Absurdly, the NCAA-affiliated school felt the original name might discomfort black students and athletes, who the school apparently felt could not understand the difference between a Scottish Clan heritage and an allusion to the racist Ku Klux Klan.
In announcing the new name, SFU President Joy Johnson said, “I’m proud that the university is moving forward under the Red Leafs name. We feel it captures the heritage and spirit of SFU, and its unique role in collegiate sports.”
“The name was chosen after consultations with numerous student groups, including the Simon Fraser Students Society, Indigenous Students Centre, and representatives from the SFU Students of Caribbean and African Ancestry (SOCA) and SFU First Nations, Metis and Inuit Student Association (FNMISA),” the CBC reported.
The women’s volleyball team is the first of the school’s teams to sport the new moniker.
One commenter on Twitter took an amusing jab at the school, saying, “So let me get this straight, we scrapped the “offensive” #Clan name to appease an American SFU professor and her snowflake followers for sounding too similar to #Klan, replacing it with the symbol on the flag of a colonial nation built on stolen land?”
Many others wondered why the school didn’t pick something like “The Highlanders” to keep in the tradition of honoring the school’s Scottish heritage.
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