Amanda Blackhorse, a Navajo who successfully moved a federal agency to withdraw trademark protections from the Washington Redskins because it considers the team¡¯s name derogatory, lives on a reservation where Navajos root for the Red Mesa High School Redskins. She opposes this name; the Native Americans who picked and retain it evidently do not.
The Patent and Trademark Office acted on a 1946 law banning trademarks that ¡°may disparage¡± persons. ¡°May¡± gives the agency latitude to disregard evidence regarding how many people actually feel disparaged, or feel that others should feel disparaged.
Blackhorse speaks of ¡°the majority of Native American people who have spoken out on this.¡± This would seem implausible even if a 2004 poll had not found that 90 percent of Native Americans were not offended by the Redskins¡¯ name. A 2013 news poll showed that 79 percent of Americans of all ethnicities opposed changing it, and just 18 percent of ¡°nonwhite football fans¡± favored changing it.
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