The fight over the most derogatory team name in sports might have a new battlefield: the Supreme Court.
On Monday, the Washington Redskins asked the Supreme Court to hear its case, which challenges the constitutionality of allowing a trademark to be barred if it “disparages” others.
The appeal is currently in the Fourth Circuit, but lawyers for the team are asking for the highest court in the land to consider the case because it is similar to the Lee vs. Tam case, which the Obama administration formally requested that SCOTUS review last week.
The Lee vs. Tam case involves a band called “The Slants.” The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office originally rejected a trademark for the band because it found that the name was disparaging to Asian Americans. However, last December, a federal appeals court found that ruling — which was based on the 1946 Lanham Act, which states that trademarks can be cancelled if they “may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute” — was a violation of the First Amendment.
Washington believes that Lee vs. Tam was correctly decided and does not warrant the Supreme Court’s review, but if it does take up the case, the team believes that the court should look at the Redskins ruling as well because it presents a “wider range” of circumstances related to the unconstitutionality of the Lanham Act.
The Washington team has faced mounting pressure to change its name, which many consider a racial slur. What was once merely a grassroots campaign now has the support of President Obama.
In 2014, the U.S. PTO canceled six federal trademark registrations for the Washington Redskins, because the nickname is “disparaging to Native Americans.”
That ruling has been under appeal ever since, allowing the team to keep the trademark until there is a final ruling. The NFL is reportedly bankrolling the legal defense of the trademark.
Last summer, a district court in Virginia upheld the cancellation, which led the Washington team to appeal to the Fourth Circuit. In that motion, the team’s lawyers stated that the U.S. PTO’s trademark cancellation violated the First Amendment and was unconstitutionally vague. The appeal also said the ruling that a trademark cannot be “disparaging” was being arbitrarily enforced, because the office had granted trademarks to other names the team believed were “racist, or misogynistic, vulgar, or otherwise offensive.”
Among the “offensive” trademarks that Washington listed in the appeal were “TAKE YO PANTIES OFF clothing,” “DANGEROUS NEGRO shirts,” and “CRACKA AZZ SKATEBOARDS.”
Washington Cites Long List Of Other Offensive Trademarks To Defends Its Offensive TrademarkSports by CREDIT: Patrick Semansky, AP The Washington NFL team is once again appealing the cancellation of their…thinkprogress.orgNow, with the Lee vs. Tam case looming, Washington is hoping to skip over the Fourth Circuit altogether. Critics of the name see this as a last-ditch effort.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the Washington team is trying to jump through legal loopholes while a growing number of Americans, and even our federal courts, are demanding an end to the demeaning R-word slur,” said Change the Mascot leader and Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter in a statement obtained by ThinkProgress. “Given this reality, the team has been left with few viable options given their unwillingness to simply accept that slur needs to go. “Instead of making a positive change in the spirit of mutual respect and progress, the NFL franchise is reportedly asking the Supreme Court to declare that it somehow has a special constitutional right to government-supported bigotry.”