The Department of Education launched an investigation Friday into New York state’s own Education Department and its Board of Regents for threatening to pull funding from a Long Island high school that refused to change its Native American mascot.

The Education Department launched an investigation Friday into the New York Department of Education for threatening to withhold money from a local school district because of its Native American mascot.

The four holdout districts filed a lawsuit against the mascot ban in 2023. U.S. Chief District Judge Margo K. Brodie dismissed the lawsuits last month on the grounds the districts did not have the capacity to sue the state and lacked sufficient evidence to bolster their claims, Newsday reported at the time.