The New School in New York City has a mascot named Gnarls. Gnarls is a narwhal. Gnarls uses they/them pronouns. Gnarls is, according to the university's official biography, "the first and only sea mammal to earn a BA/BFA dual degree from The New School."

That is not satire. That is from the school's website.

The College Fix reporter Simon Olech visited campus to ask students about their non-binary narwhal, and the video — now making the rounds on social media — is exactly what you'd expect. Students defended Gnarls with the kind of earnest passion normally reserved for civil rights heroes, not a cartoon whale with a horn on its head.

Gnarls debuted in August 2021 as a redesign of the school's previous narwhal mascot. But a regular mascot apparently wasn't enough for a school that charges north of $50,000 a year in tuition. The new Gnarls came with a full backstory: born in the Arctic between Baffin Bay and Svalbard, Norway. Parents named Mor and Far. A sister named Gnash. Displaced by climate change at age 12. Arrived in New York City at 18, landing near Chelsea Piers. Enrolled at The New School. Majored in Communication Design at Parsons and Environmental Studies at Lang.

Assistant Provost Zach Harrell explained the rationale: "In order to prepare students to succeed in a rapidly changing society our values must reflect the evolved needs of our population." The evolved needs of the population apparently include assigning pronouns to a marine mammal that doesn't exist.

The university describes Gnarls as "a social justice advocate" who attends orientation week, university events, and — naturally — political protests. The school tracks campus sightings with the hashtag #wheresgnarls. Gnarls is a Pisces, because of course a fictional narwhal needs an astrological sign.

None of this is parody. Every detail comes directly from The New School's official mascot page.

The students in Olech's video aren't embarrassed by any of this. They're proud. They defend Gnarls and the they/them pronouns the way you'd defend a core institutional value, because at The New School, this apparently is a core institutional value. The mascot isn't there to build school spirit at basketball games. It's there to signal that the university has the correct politics — right down to the fictional biography of an imaginary sea creature.

There was a time when a mascot was a guy in a bear suit who did push-ups after touchdowns. Now it's a gender-neutral narwhal with a trauma narrative and a dual major in design and environmentalism.

Parsons School of Design, which is part of The New School, has produced legitimate talent — Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan. Students used to go there to become the best in their field. Now the school's most visible symbol is a cartoon whale whose defining characteristic is its pronoun card.

The video is worth watching, not because it's surprising, but because it's perfectly ordinary to the people in it. Nobody laughs. Nobody pauses. Nobody seems to register that they're passionately defending the gender identity of a drawing.

That's not a mascot. That's a mission statement in a narwhal costume.