A sign of the changing times, UNLV had its famous mascot statue “Hey Reb!” removed from its location in front of the Tam Alumni Center Tuesday night.
Here’s video of the “Hey Reb!” statue being removed from UNLV’s campus.
The school issued a message via president Marta Meana about the act of taking “Hey Reb!” down at this time.
Could the UNLV Hey Reb! mascot be next?
In addition to removing the “Hey Reb!” statue, UNLV is having discussions about “the future of our mascot.”
One group of students who initially asked for the Hey Reb! statue to be removed is the Native American Student Association at the school.
“On a campus that’s supposed to be ‘different, daring and diverse,’ we have this statue of an Indian killer,” group president Ryan Boone said.
Originally, UNLV had a mascot that was even more controversial.
As noted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “The first mascot to represent the Rebels, a cartoon wolf dressed in a Confederate soldier’s uniform, drew widespread student criticism throughout the 1970s. By 1976, the student association voted to disassociate with the wolf known as Beauregard.”
When “Hey Reb!” was introduced in 1982, it was seen as a better option. Since then, however, that perception has changed.