For years the Washington Redskins have been defending their team name from activists who contend it’s a slur.
The battle was renewed Thursday, when a three-judge US Patent Office Panel heard arguments on a lawsuit brought to strip the football franchise of its trademark protection. The suit is based on a prohibition against trademarks that “may disparage” or bring people “into contempt.”
While the activists can’t force the Redskins to change their name, trademark loss would end their lucrative exclusive on the sale of team merchandise.
For their part, the Redskins insist that team names are meant to celebrate, not humiliate. They are invoked to connote strength, victory and pride. Which is why we have the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.
Unfortunately, none of this has stopped a long-standing and largely successful campaign against Indian team names. At times it’s produced some odd results. For example, an all-inclusive Oregon ban on American Indian names by state-funded schools meant an end to the Warriors — the team name at a public school run by the Confederated Tribe of Siletz Indians.
In 1999, the Trademark Board actually did strip the Redskins of their trademark. That decision was later reversed on a technicality. A few years later, a senior linguist at the Smithsonian who spent seven months researching the term found that it originated among Native Americans themselves, to distinguish themselves from the colonists.
Washington’s football franchise plainly means no offense. And if a 2004 Annenberg Survey by the University of Pennsylvania is any clue, 90 percent of Native Americans questioned nationwide take no offense. Unfortunately, we have an activist community that exists to find offense.
If the Redskins lose here, what’s next — the Jeep Cherokee?