School cans singing of ‘Jingle Bells’ due to ‘potential to be controversial or offensive’

And that’s all Tappon (below, left) had to offer. But Brighton Central School District Assistant Superintendent Allison Rioux told Lovenheim that “some suggest that the use of collars on slaves with bells to send an alert that they were running away is connected to the origin of the song Jingle Bells.”

Rioux added the district is “not taking a stance” on this suggestion … but it cancelled “Jingle Bells” anyway.

Ironically, the district cited research by Boston University’s Kyna Hamill, who had detailed the song’s racial history (like it being used in minstrel shows). But Hamill thought the decision to can “Jingle Bells” was silly.

“I am actually quite shocked the school would remove the song from the repertoire,” Hamill said. “I, in no way, recommended that it stopped being sung by children. My article tried to tell the story of the first performance of the song, I do not connect this to the popular Christmas tradition of singing the song now.”

The slave collar aspect was not addressed in Hamill’s research. Lovenheim notes Google searches show that bells on horses were used as a far back as the Roman Empire.