Posts Tagged: "washington redskins"

While this decision will be widely cheered by many who are concerned with political correctness, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that from a legal standpoint this decision is clearly wrong… This is not to say that the trademarks in question are not hurtful to some, but the law simply requires direct evidence that the relevant audience, in this case Native Americans, found the term disparaging when the trademarks were actually registered. On this critical question there was simply not competent legal evidence, which is not to say that the term in and of itself isn’t offensive or it hasn’t been used as a racial slur. Based on the appropriate legal standard those things simply are not relevant.

The United States Supreme Court earlier today announced that they will not accept the appeal in the Harjo case, which means that the decision of the the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will stand as the final decision in the long dispute that sought to strip the team of its trademark as a result of the term “Redskin” being offensive and not susceptible of receiving trademark protection.