Brighton Central School District Superintendent Kevin McGowan defended the decision of teachers who removed the classic holiday song "Jingle Bells" from their curriculum due to research revealing it may have had racist origins.

The New York school reportedly decided to do away with the classic song after research from 2017 by Boston University professor Kyna Hamill uncovered the song's first public performance may have been in a minstrel show by actors in blackface.

Hamill was surprised to hear about the school's decision to cancel the song and said she does not associate the current Christmas tradition of singing the song with its minstrel show origins, Democrat and Chronicle reports.

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Hamill said she “in no way recommended it stop being sung by children” and that she believes it “should very much be sung and enjoyed and perhaps discussed.”

McGowan posted a statement on Wednesday defending the removal and assuring the move was not "'liberalism gone amok’ or ‘cancel culture at its finest’ as some have suggested."

“It may seem silly to some, but the fact that ‘Jingle Bells’ was first performed in minstrel shows where white actors performed in blackface does actually matter when it comes to questions of what we use as material in school," the superintendent said. "I’m glad that our staff paused when learning of this, reflected, and decided to use different material to accomplish the same objective in class.”

Because the song is tied with Christmas, a religious holiday not celebrated by everyone in the community, McGowan said it “was not likely a song that we would have wanted as part of the school curriculum in the first place. Our staff found that their simple objective could be accomplished by singing any one of many songs in class and therefore they chose to simply choose other songs.”

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“Nobody has said you shouldn’t sing ‘Jingle Bells’ or ever in any way suggested that to your children. I can assure you that this situation is not an attempt to push an agenda," he added. "If many, many songs are available to accomplish the same objective, then why wouldn’t we use those songs? I think our teachers answered that question very thoughtfully and I’m proud of their work.”