aFAYETTE, N.Y., Nov. 14 — For more than 30 years, young members of the five tribes who live on the Onondaga reservation some 10 miles south of Syracuse have felt that the schools they attend, which are run by non-Indians, were not treating them as equals.

Last Wednesday, the LaFayette Central School District took a major — and controversial — step in an effort to dispel that feeling. It began flying the purple and white flag of the Iroquois Confederacy, which symbolizes peace between the five tribes, the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk.

Some residents who are not American Indians, angered by the decision, issued a petition and threats that the flag would be torn down.

LaFayette's superintendent, Mark Mondanaro, said he was disappointed. "I have a tendency to be upset with anyone who doesn't have an open mind," he said.

Some 23 percent of LaFayette's 1,100 students are Indians, including those who live in the town. For 50 years, the district has operated an elementary school on the reservation that comprises kindergarten through eighth grade. After eighth grade, students transfer to LaFayette Junior/Senior High in town, where the flag-raising was held.

"It's the right thing to do," Mr. Mondanaro said, "and frankly, it's embarrassing it hasn't been done before this."

Wendy Gonyea, who was a student there in the 1960's, said attending the school was "like being in a foreign environment." "Some teachers tried to make us feel welcome," she said, "but there was never anything official. This is official, and it's about time."

Ms. Gonyea said she was in college in April 1970, when high school seniors organized a walkout to protest the atmosphere. The state Education Department became involved and helped bring about several changes. The school formed a club that dealt with American Indian culture and received more books on the topic, said Audrey Shenandoah, one of the elders on the reservation. Additional supplies also went to the school on the reservation, said Elder Shenandoah, who has 10 children, some of whom were in school at the time.

Students did not ask the district to fly the flag then, because it had not yet become popular on the reservation, Ms. Gonyea said. A decade later, the nation's lacrosse team started carrying the flag to competitions, and it became a unifying symbol.

For 10 years, students and parents have asked the district to fly the flag. They found a sympathetic ear in Mr. Mondanaro, who became district superintendent last year. He said he spent six months researching the legality of the issue, and found that one other New York school district had set a precedent: the Salmon River School District near the Canadian border. The St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, where some Canadians also live, is within the district, and 60 percent of the school district's 1,525 students are American Indians. Like LaFayette, the Salmon River district runs a school on the reservation. Last year, it began flying the flags of both the Iroquois Confederacy and Canada. There was not a ripple of dissent from the community, said Salmon River's district superintendent, Glenn Bellinger.

Mr. Bellinger said flying all three flags had a positive effect. "It says we're all equal," he said, adding that he thought Lafayette's controversy "will work out eventually."

Jean Schneible, a mother of three, two of whom are still in the district, collected nearly 100 signatures on a petition asking that the flag be flown lower than the American flag, a position also supported by some veterans groups. She said she was disappointed that the district flew them at equal heights. "I hope that somebody takes it down. I would never destroy other people's property, but I think people will take it down and destroy the pole that it's on that the taxpayers paid for."

Ms. Schneible, who said her mother was half Indian, said the district had a long history given preferential treatment to American Indians, especially by ignoring discipline problems among its students. She said Indian students had pulled her daughter's hair on the bus and called her derogatory names, but that no one was disciplined.

"I told her you get good and bad in any race," the mother said. "but today, she's terrified of them."

Mr. Mondanaro said that the law required that the flags fly at the same height and that as long as the American flag is to the left, it is in the position of prominence.

When officials first considered flying the flag, Pat Curtis, a member of LaFayette's Memorial Post 1955 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, told the school board, "You can do it, but it won't stay there."

Ms. Gonyea, who attended the meeting, said: "My heart sank a little. I don't think they know us."

Some students were quoted in the local newspaper as saying they would take the flag down, their anger fueled by a recent attack at the junior/senior high school.

In September, a seventh-grader who is an American Indian was charged with a hate crime and expelled, accused of tackling the homecoming princess, who is white, and ripping out some of her hair. The victim had been dancing with her boyfriend, an Indian, in the school cafeteria, and the seventh-grader is accused of yelling to him that he should stick with his own kind.

On Wednesday, Ms. Gonyea's 16-year-old son, Steven Thomas, took part in the flag-raising ceremony while some of his non-Indian friends stayed behind, either in protest or in apathy. "The purpose wasn't to divide us, but unite us," Steven said. "Hopefully, some younger kids coming up will give respect to both flags. That's the right thing to do."

Ms. Schneible said the fight was far from over. She said she was consulting state officials, considering a lawsuit and planning to run for school board. "If I have to fight them tooth and nail, that's what I'm going to do."

Meanwhile, the district plans to raise another Iroquois Confederacy flag at Grimshaw Elementary School next week.

Elder Shenandoah will be there. "It's a good sign of things to come," she said.