A misconception has arisen in the days since the NFL franchise owned by Daniel Snyder secured a definitive legal victory in the longstanding challenge to its federal trademark rights. Many believe that Washington won the case because the U.S. Supreme Court deemed the name to be not offensive.
That’s not the case. The Supreme Court ruled only that the government has no right or duty to refuse or restrict trademark protection based on concerns that the protected name is or could be regarded as offensive.
The editorial board of the Washington Post recently explained the difference while reiterating its prior call to change the name.
“Mr. Snyder can call his football team anything he wants without fear of losing the valuable trademark protection that is key to merchandising revenue,” the editorial board wrote. “But just because the First Amendment gives him the right to use a racial slur, that doesn’t mean he should. Why would he even want to? We understand the affection Mr. Snyder and some team fans espouse for the history embodied in the name, and we have never thought there is racist intent when fans hail the team’s name.
“None of that, though, changes the inescapable fact that the name is one that no one with any real sense of decency would ever think to call a Native American to his or her face. It is degrading. It does real harm, particularly in psychological damage to Native American children and teens. It should be changed — and then congratulations will be in order.”
This is far from a case of political correctness run amok or non-Native Americans telling Native Americans what should offend them. A Washington Post poll from 2016, however flawed and criticized it may have been, still showed that roughly 10 percent of self-identifying Native Americans find the term objectionable. Even if that number is low, what other NFL franchise carries a name that reasonably offends 10 percent of the group to which it refers?