Ms. Richman has fallen into a trap.  She believes that she can eliminate offensiveness.  But she can't.  People are different by nature.  What some enjoy, others can find repulsive.  The offense of mascots stems from human diversity.  From the fact that different folks see the world through different eyes.  Ms. Richman's road of enforcing uniformity means that the likes and opinions of those with power will be enforced on all.  Once all mascots are tailored to her wishes, there will remain many offended by her tastes.

If we wish to honor the essential diversity of human nature, we need allow individual groups to make up there own minds on all matters whose resolution does not directly and significantly affect the freedom of others.