A Jesuit university in California just erased nine decades of tradition because fewer than 400 people signed a petition — and the administrators who run the place couldn't cave fast enough.
The University of San Francisco announced Friday that "The Don," the costumed mascot that has patrolled the school's sidelines since 1932, will officially retire at the start of the spring 2027 semester. In its place: a wolf. The athletic teams will still be called the Dons — meaning the school is keeping the name while killing the symbol, a half-measure designed to let administrators claim they changed everything and nothing at the same time.
The pressure campaign traces back to 2022, when USF's student government passed a formal resolution demanding the mascot's removal, arguing the character symbolized the exploitation and subjugation of California's Indigenous people. A petition supporting the measure gathered just over 400 signatures — a rounding error at a university of more than 10,000 students. That was enough.
The mascot honored Don Francisco de Haro, the first mayor of Yerba Buena before it became San Francisco. "Don" is a Spanish honorific denoting noble origin. But according to the San Francisco Chronicle, as reported by Breitbart, the image has "fallen out of favor in the modern world," and some students decided the figure shares too much in common with the history of Spanish colonization.
USF President Salvador Aceves, working alongside newly appointed athletic director Brent Blaylock, framed the surrender as a fresh start. "With new leadership at USF and in Dons Athletics, we believe the time is right to revitalize our image and embrace a new mascot, one that is known for its intelligence, endurance and ability to work cooperatively in its pack," Aceves said in a statement. "At the same time, we will proudly remain the University of San Francisco Dons."
Former student government vice president Ariana Anayat, who led the initial push four years ago, told the New York Post she was "elated" to see the campaign finally succeed.
The Post reported mixed reactions across the university community, with alumni venting frustration online and accusing the administration of unnecessarily rewriting decades of campus sports history. Breitbart noted the backlash sparked by the swap.
University officials said the incoming wolf emblem maintains a connection to the school's Jesuit heritage, referencing the bronze "Los Lobos de Loyola" statues on campus that depict the 15th-century family coat of arms of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The administration plans to consult students and staff on the final costume design in the coming months.
Both outlets covering the story framed it as a capitulation — Breitbart headlined it as a "woke" college "caving," while the New York Post wrote that the school "caves to woke students." Neither outlet found anyone willing to defend the decision on its merits. The only voice celebrating was Anayat's.
The pattern here is familiar by now. A small, organized faction declares a tradition offensive. Administrators, who never met a controversy they wanted to hold the line on, commission a task force, run out the clock, and then announce the inevitable as though it were a thoughtful evolution. The Chronicle's framing — that the mascot simply "fell out of favor in the modern world" — does the heavy lifting for the censors, turning an active pressure campaign into something passive and inevitable.
The question nobody in USF's administration is answering: if the Dons name is fine to keep, why isn't the figure it represents? Either the school believes its own colonial-history argument or it doesn't. What it has settled on — kill the mascot, keep the name — suggests this was never about principle. It was about finding the path of least resistance and calling it progress.
