HENRICO, Va. – Some students at Freeman High School like being rebels.

So much so, they’re demanding their school in the Henrico County district readopt the Rebel as its mascot.

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The Washington Post reports:

Students and alumni from a Richmond-area high school are seeking to revive the school’s historic mascot, a Confederate soldier known as the “Rebel Man,” spurring debate about the appropriateness of public school connections to the Civil War and its icons.

More than 1,200 students, alumni and parents with connections to Henrico County’s Douglas S. Freeman High School have signed a petition calling on the administration to use its Rebel mascot — which dates to the 1950s — for the school’s athletic events.

“I think he really represents us as the Southern school that we are,” said Alecsys Brown, 16, a rising senior at Freeman who helped start the petition. “Since Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy, a Southern soldier really represents us as a school.”

“We cannot lose sight of the real issue at hand: creating a school environment that is inclusive of all the students that walk its halls,” Freeman graduate Charlie Conner tells the Post.

For now, administrators are objecting to reinstating the Rebel and instead are leaning towards becoming “rebel lions,” according to WRIC…whatever those are.

Alecsys Brown tells WRIC, “It’s not like he’s promoting like slavery or like personifying racism in any way. That’s not who we are as a school. He’s just this guy in gray and blue.”

“Instead of rejecting tradition, we need to embrace it,” an online petition reads, which has garnered more than 1,000 signatures, according to the Post.