On Tuesday, the county board for Arlington, Va., a suburb of the nation’s capital, became the latest government body to approve a resolution calling on Washington’s NFL team to change its controversial “Redskins” name. Three of the Arlington board’s five members voted in favor of the resolution, with two abstaining on grounds that a local government should not interfere with a private business, the Washington Post reported.
“The current name offends many people, serves to divide us, diminishes our humanity, and when we do not stand up against it, can erode our integrity,” the resolution reads. “The Arlington County Board commends the Washington NFL football team for their outstanding contribution to the Greater Washington metropolitan region and requests the team’s owners to change the name and be welcomed into our Commonwealth with a fresh start and a brand new name.”
The vote makes Arlington the latest entity to officially oppose the name. The D.C. City Council approved a similar resolution in 2013. Both California and New York’s state legislatures passed resolutions condemning the mascot in 2014. Lawmakers also approved a resolution against the name in Minneapolis, where there have been widespread protests at Washington road games. The name has been an issue in national politics as well, with Congressional leaders, President Obama, and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaking out against it.
The Arlington resolution comes at a time when the state of Virginia is making preliminary efforts to woo the team to relocate from Landover, Md., where it has played at FedEx Field since 1997. But it will likely have little effect on stadium talks. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has said the government should have no role in the name debate, and he is aggressively pursuing a new stadium for the team in Northern Virginia. Though he has not named specific sites, the most likely location is in Loudoun County, where the team is based and where the county board in 2013 voted to support its right to use the name.
Though Washington continues to receive the bulk of the criticism given its position in the NFL, the name has been a subject of controversy and change in local school districts nationwide for decades. This year alone, school districts in Oklahoma and New York have voted to drop it, and California could soon become the first state to ban schools from using it. Native American tribes, civil rights and religious groups, and both the American Psychological and American Sociological associations have called on Washington and schools to drop the mascot. According to various compilations, no Virginia schools use the mascot.