diff --git a/cms/envs/aws.py b/cms/envs/aws.py
index 32a4c97551..592415f61a 100644
--- a/cms/envs/aws.py
+++ b/cms/envs/aws.py
@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ with open(CONFIG_ROOT / CONFIG_PREFIX + "env.json") as env_file:
 STATIC_URL_BASE = ENV_TOKENS.get('STATIC_URL_BASE', None)
 if STATIC_URL_BASE:
     # collectstatic will fail if STATIC_URL is a unicode string
-    STATIC_URL = STATIC_URL_BASE.encode('ascii', 'ignore') + "/" + git.revision + "/"
+    STATIC_URL = STATIC_URL_BASE.encode('ascii') + "/" + git.revision + "/"
 
 # GITHUB_REPO_ROOT is the base directory
 # for course data
diff --git a/lms/envs/aws.py b/lms/envs/aws.py
index a1146c6c84..4e39ea89d3 100644
--- a/lms/envs/aws.py
+++ b/lms/envs/aws.py
@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ if STATIC_ROOT_BASE:
 STATIC_URL_BASE = ENV_TOKENS.get('STATIC_URL_BASE', None)
 if STATIC_URL_BASE:
     # collectstatic will fail if STATIC_URL is a unicode string
-    STATIC_URL = STATIC_URL_BASE.encode('ascii', 'ignore') + "/"
+    STATIC_URL = STATIC_URL_BASE.encode('ascii') + "/"
 
 PLATFORM_NAME = ENV_TOKENS.get('PLATFORM_NAME', PLATFORM_NAME)
 # For displaying on the receipt. At Stanford PLATFORM_NAME != MERCHANT_NAME, but PLATFORM_NAME is a fine default