Monday, November 16, 2009

Supreme Court Doesn't Wanna Hear About Redskins

I've talked, at length, on several occasions about why I think the Redskins team name has got to go. And it would be great if the team would just do the right thing. Because that's something that heartless corporations do all the time, right? Just doing the right thing because it is the right thing?

Anyway, there's also been a lawsuit moving through the system for the past 17 years that finally has finally come to the end. Suzan Shown Harjo (in conjunction with a number of plaintiffs) initially won her protest with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to get the trademark rescinded.

The group that owns that trademark, Pro-Football Inc (aka Washington Redskins) has won every appeal since, and the case has been slowly making its way to the top of the court system. Today it came to a totally expected, anti-climatic and yet disappointing end, with the Supreme Court refusing to hear the case without comment.

To be fair, the Pro-Football legal team found a pretty good procedural issue to turn the case on, and while it was minor it was enough to get everyone off the hook without really addressing the fundamental issue of whether the pejorative "Redskin" is really something that should be controlled by anyone, much less a dude like Dan Snyder.

I believe the writing on the wall for this appeal was apparent for quite awhile, and I will not be surprised to see a new case that addresses the minor league bullshit the first one was dismissed for having (which was related to the age of plaintiffs).

Or Dan Snyder could suck it up, spend a little bit of money, and get rid of the most racist name in sports. Just a thought.

2 comments:

Muumuuman said...

Right now in Colorado people don't want to hear about the Skin's either.

Andrew Wice said...

Colorado, hmm. I wonder who was living there in the thousands of years before Vail was built?