OKLAHOMA CITY – Student protests erupted at Oklahoma City’s Capitol Hill High School this week over a recent unanimous decision by the school board to do away with school’s 88-year-old Redskins mascot.

The protest slowed traffic outside the school Wednesday as hundreds of students toted signs of support for the Redskins mascot on the front lawn, protesting an 8-0 vote by board members Monday to eliminate the name, according to media reports.

“Most of the kids here are not happy about the change of the mascot due to the fat that … it had been the mascot for 88 years and having the mascot Redskins is not a derogatory term to most of us here,” a senior at the school told The Huffington Post.

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“Being called a Redskin is what made us, it made us who we are, it made us students of Capitol Hill High, and it irritates us that we had no say so in whether or not it should be changed.”

The name change was precipitated by Cedric Sunray, advisor for the American Indian Organization at Centennial Mid-High School, and Star Yellowfish, the district’s administrator for American Indian student services, NewsOK.com reports.

Yellowfish explained why some Native Americans find the Redskins name offensive, and urged the board to find a new mascot.

“I was actually surprised about how well-received it was. I thought that I would have to do more education on our end to let them learn about the word,” Yellowfish told NewsOK.com. “But they get it. They got it, and they care about our kids.”

Yellowfish said the Redskins term is used to describe the bloodied bodies of scalped Indians, not their skin color.

“It is important to know the powerful image that is brought to mind when our people hear this word,” she said.

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Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Rob Neu backed the move.

“What this board said tonight is that we’re really seriously committed to serving all students through the equity lens,” he said, according to NewsOK.com.

Board member Ron Millican told the news site he voted in favor of the change because “there was no real reason not to do the right thing.”

The school’s alumni association, however, disagreed and argued that its members are proud to be labeled Redskins.

“I could tell by the temperature in the room and the pulse of everybody in this meeting that the mascot was not going to win,” alumni association spokesman J. Don Harris said.

At least one student said she’s happy with the change and raised issues with how the district treats American Indian students, though she does not attend Capitol Hill High, according to the NativeTimes.com.

“In 2014 we should not even be having this conversation,” said Anika Grant, a senior from Centennial Mid-High. “American Indian students are made to deal with too much in our school systems. Across the state and country are on-going fights about our right to wear eagle feathers at high school graduations, the acceptable length of our hair, and the issues surrounding mascots.”

At Monday’s board meeting, Yellowfish also shared with the board the results of a “listening session” last month that was spawned by the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education.

That listening session showed Oklahoma Native Americans want mascots like the Redskins changed, more Native American educators, more accurate history lessons, less bullying by teachers and peers, and the removal of “Land Run” reenactments from the curriculum, NativeTimes.com reports.

The Land Run lessons, in which students reenact settlers staking their claim to land, had been a part of the school culture for decades, but was banned by Oklahoma City schools after the White House “listening tour,” KFOR.com reports.

Sarah Adams-Cornell, with the Oklahoma City Public Schools Native American Parent Service Committee, told the news site the committee is now working to develop “Oklahoma History Day,” to replace the Land Run reenactments.

“It would give all angles of the Land Run, from the Native American, immigrant and settler perspectives,” KFOR reports.