CRYSTAL CITY, Va. – For the first time in a legal battle that has stretched more than 20 years, a federal judge on July 8 ordered the cancellation of the Washington NFL team’s trademark registration, ruling that the team name may be disparaging to Native Americans.
Speaking at a July 11 awards dinner at the National Native Media Conference in Crystal City, one of the plaintiffs in the case, Amanda Blackhorse, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, said the team has appealed the ruling but she believes the cause to change the name has a “tremendous amount of momentum right now.”
“I want to keep that momentum going. We have a new football season that’s coming up soon, and I think people are already planning protests...to continue the protests that happened last year,” she said. “I think that change is coming. I can feel it.”
However, the ruling does not bar the team from using the R*dsk*ns name if it wishes. The team could even still sue for trademark infringement, but winning such a case could prove more complex without the legal protections that come with a federally registered trademark.
Washington team President Bruce Allen said the team would appeal. The team’s lawyer, Robert Raskopf, said the team’s trademarks remain intact during the appeal process and that the team “will continue to use their longstanding marks.”
Blackhorse said she does not understand why the team’s owner, Dan Snyder, does not understand the name is offensive.
“We have won now twice before the TTAB (Trademark Trial and Appeal Board). I just don’t understand when this team will really get that,” she said. “And this is a victory, but a true victory will not be until the team is called Washington Something Else.”
U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee’s July 8 ruling upholds an earlier finding by an administrative appeal board and orders the federal Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the registration. A group of Native American activists first challenged the trademark registration in 1992, and various administrative boards have ruled against the team before. But the July 8 order is the first time that a federal judge ruled that the name may be disparaging.
The team had sued in federal court in Alexandria seeking to overturn a ruling in 2014 by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. It argued that the name honors Native Americans and that canceling the trademark infringes on its free speech rights because it requires the government to judge whether the name is offensive.
In rejecting the team’s free speech argument, Lee’s 70-page ruling cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision last month allowing Texas to bar depiction of the Confederate battle flag on specialty license plates sought by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Just as Texas could not be forced to issue license plates depicting a flag considered offensive, Lee said, the Patent and Trademark Office could not be forced to register a trademark that is deemed disparaging.
Lee said the team’s free speech rights are unaffected because the team can still use the name.
Washington President Allen said in a statement the team is convinced it will win “because the facts and the law are on the side of our franchise that has proudly used the name [R*dsk*ns] for more than 80 years.”
Jeff Lopez, an attorney for the Native Americans who challenged the team’s name, said that Lee’s ruling was an across-the-board victory for his clients and that he is confident it will be upheld on appeal.
Blackhorse thanked Muscogee (Creek) activist Suzan Shown Harjo, who was in attendance at the July 11 awards dinner, and told her without her there would not be a movement to get rid of the Washington mascot.
She added that Harjo has provided a platform to Native people in the country “to say to the rest of the world that we are here, we are present, we are indigenous people and we’re not going anywhere.”
“We are incredibly resilient, and we are not your mascot, and we are not your stereotype,” Blackhorse said.
– Republished with permission of the Cherokee Phoenix | www.cherokeephoenix.org
