Policing speech is so important to the State Education Department that’s it’s launched a two-front war on the Massapequa Chiefs mascot name — fighting not just the school district, but also the feds.

SED years ago ordered all New York public schools to abandon anything resembling an Indian mascot, because progressives think they’re all evil, even if plenty of regular folks (including many Native Americans) see them as honoring a heritage.

Massapequa resisted on those grounds (“Massapequa” itself is a Native name, after all); now SED threatens to withhold funds if the district won’t fold.

That’s even as SED is rejecting federal orders for a cease-fire in its mascot wars — orders that come with their own implicit threat to withhold funds from the state.

Instead, SED offers a “compromise” that’s worse than the disease: It suggests banning any mascot based on any “ethnic group.”

The real question, of course, is: Why are state officials even bothering with such nonsense when they should be focusing on how New York schools can better teach kids?  

NOTE: An earlier version of this editorial misattributed the “cowboys” example to the State Education Department, when that confusion came from a statement from the federal Education Department. We regret our error.