Supreme Court Allows D.C. Football Team to Keep Redskins Mascot

The Washington Redskins have been feeling the heat for their Native American mascot for almost two decades. But the pressure eased in November when the Supreme Court refused to hear a case from a group of seven Native Americans claiming that the mascot is offensive.

In 1992, a group of American Indians lead by Suzan Shown Harjo went to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with a case against the Washington Redskins. The group argued the football moniker does not deserve trademark protection because it is racially offensive. Since trademark law prohibits the registration of a disparaging name, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board canceled the Redskins' trademark rights in 1999.

The Washington Redskins appealed the decision and won in a U.S. District Court on a technicality: the plaintiffs did not file their lawsuit in a timely manner.

Harjo and the group of Native Americans took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, where their efforts were again thwarted.

Saved by the Statute of Limitations

	The statute of limitations sets the maximum amount of time after an event that someone may sue.

No court has commented on the major issue in Harjo v. Pro-Football, Inc: whether the Redskins name is offensive. That's because before a case can be argued in court, it has to follow a specific set of rules. One of these rules is the statute of limitations which says that after an offensive act, the parties harmed must file their lawsuit within a certain time period.

In this situation, the "offensive act" was the trademarking of the Washington Redskins' name and mascot, which happened in 1967.

The Harjo v. Pro-Football, Inc case was filed 25 years later. The statute of limitations varies for different types of cases, but the U.S. District Court ruled that the gap between the trademark and the official complaint was too wide.

The plaintiffs tried to argue that Mateo Romero, who was the youngest of the seven Native Americans in the case, was only 1 year old when the trademark was established, and therefore was too young to file a lawsuit against it. But the courts disagreed. 

Decades of discrimination?

	William "Lone Star" Dietz, of the Sioux Nation, was head coach of the Boston Redskins from 1933 to 1934.

The Washington Redskins team was created in Massachusetts as the Boston Braves. Then-owner George Preston Marshall changed the name to the "Redskins" in 1933 to honor Native American head coach William "Lone Star" Dietz. In 1937, the team moved to Washington, D.C.

Although the Redskins mascot was developed as a form of praise, many see it as a racially disparaging pop culture representation of Native Americans.

Some scholars argued the name does enough public damage to warrant the dismissal of timeliness charges. In a petition to the Supreme Court, a group of psychology professors explained “the public has a compelling interest in the cancellation of disparaging trademarks – such as the Redskins mark – that embody invidious racial and ethnic slurs.”

The dispute goes on

	Florida State's mascot Chief Osceola was approved by the Seminole tribe.

This case is part of a larger social dispute over the use of Native American sports mascots. Some teams have changed their names. For example, in 1994, Marquette University changed its name from the Warriors to the Golden Eagles. The university's president explained that the school did not want to be seen as denigrating the dignity of Native Americas. 

But Redskins Vice President Karl Swanson said the mascot represents the "greatness and strength of a grand people."

And in some cases, Native Americans support such imagery. The Seminole tribe of Florida, which sanctions Florida State University's use of "Seminole" as the school nickname and "Chief Osceola" -- a Seminole chief on a horse named Renegade -- as the mascot.

The debate over the Washington Redskins name is not over. Six Native Americans ranging in age from 18 to 24 filed a similar lawsuit about two years ago, but it was on hold until the Harjo suit reached a resolution. 

Since all of the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit have only recently reached the age of maturity, the Redskins' trademark may be more vulnerable this time around.