An interesting footnote appeared in an opinion by U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Maryland this week. Messitte stated that the court would no longer use the team name “Redskins” in any opinion and will refer instead to “the Washington Team.” I recently wrote a Washington Post column on the controversy over the Redskins name. The question is whether it is appropriate to limit the use of the name in an opinion when there is considerable public debate over whether it is offensive and whether, if it is barred in opinions, the court should bar its use in court.
The footnote appears on the first page of a ruling dismissing some claims in the case of ex-New York Giants linebacker Barrett Green who accused the Redskins of giving its players financial rewards for deliberately injuring opposing athletes.
The footnote states:
Pro Football’s team is popularly known as the Washington “Redskins,” but the Court will refrain from using the team name unless reference is made to a direct quote where the name appears. Pro Football’s team will be referred to hereafter simply as “the Washington Team.”
According, the opinion uses somewhat awkward language such as “on December 5, 2004, Green, who was a defensive linebacker for the New York Giants, was playing in a game with the Washington team at the Washington team’s Maryland stadium.”
The action presents a novel question. Clearly the court is allowed to bar offensive language not just in opinions but in court. However, if the court believes the name is offensive for opinions, it would seem to follow that he would instruct others not to use the name in court. The problem is that this issue is hotly contested and indeed it is the subject of pending litigation in the appeal from the board at the Patent office in denying trademark protection to the team. While the name was found offensive by this small administrative board, it is on appeal and the legally enforceable name of the team remains “Redskins.” Until the matter is resolved, should a court adopt such a rule? There is great latitude given courts in managing their courtrooms and opinions, particularly in barring words or conduct viewed as disruptive or offense.
What do you think?
Messitte has a B.A. from Amherst College in 1963 and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1966. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in São Paulo, Brazil from 1966 to 1968. He sits on the United States District Court for the District of Maryland and was nominated by President Bill Clinton on August 6, 1993,
Sources: Washington Post and Wall Street Journal
I wonder if N.W.A. have a trademark. If so, I wonder if Harry is going to go after them next?
Sauce, being that I’m not part of the ethnic group that N.W.A belongs to, am I still not allowed to say their name after I give them money after purchasing their “music”?
Since when do courts retain the power to ban words? The shame underlying the PC movement and its pushto eradicate words (of all things) has no place in civil society in which we are all responsible for what we think and say, and no one else is. Banning words represents a profound failure to deal with reality.
Can you imagine such a film as Blazing Saddles being made today? Hollywood would be sued out of existence.
The term is a slur and should not be used by the court. Banning the use of the word is unnecessary.
Dale wrote “Washington’s original baseball team was called the Senators. Did they lose anything when the current team became the Nationals?”
Dan Snyder could easily change the name of the team to “Warriors” and the storm would disappear. But he’s one who does not allow anyone to tell him anything — he’s a genius, doncha know. He might change his tune when shiploads of Chinese-made merchandise not controlled by him starts arriving, with his share of the sales being zero because he lost the trademark.
Jim22 wrote “Newspeak … thoughtcrime … You are the one with logic issues.”
It’s good that your nursing home, especially your area for the demented, allows you to use the Internet as therapy.
TheSaucyMugwump (@TheSaucyMugwump) – “A member of an ethnic community using an ethnic word to describe another member of the same community is not remotely the same as a non-member of that community doing it.”
Oh, I get it, blacks don’t use the words, hick, whitey or redneck.
Sauce,
Hmmm, Let’s see. A football team called the Washington Redskins and a proposal to go to a reservation (a poor one as you put it) and refer to the “young men” as redskins. So who is comparing apples and oranges? You are the one with logic issues.
From 1984 –
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take “good”, for instance. If you have a word like “good”, what need is there for a word like “bad”? “Ungood” will do just as well — better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of “good”, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like “excellent” and “splendid” and all the rest of them? “Plusgood” covers the meaning, or “doubleplusgood” if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words — in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?”
” Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.”
Jim22 wrote “Have you listened to rap music or a black comedian lately?”
A member of an ethnic community using an ethnic word to describe another member of the same community is not remotely the same as a non-member of that community doing it.
I would wager good money that Native Americans do not refer to each other as “redskins.”
Jim22 wrote “What if you went to your poverty-stricken reservation and talked football to a group of young men and the Redskins came up in that discussion?”
It’s a shame that your reading comprehension skills are inadequate. Perhaps you could reread the part where I wrote “start referring to them as “redskins'”
You have a habit of comparing apples and oranges.
It is long past the time when we should have recognized the potential for giving offense even where no offense was intended and stopped using this name. Washington’s original baseball team was called the Senators. Did they lose anything when the current team became the Nationals?
Sauce, What if you went to your poverty-stricken reservation and talked football to a group of young men and the Redskins came up in that discussion? I doubt you would need your medical card. Yes, if you take a word and use it in a derogatory way, you are asking for trouble.
Jeffrey Silberman, Really? Have you listened to rap music or a black comedian lately?
Here’s a reliable test for good old boys / girls who claim that the word “redskins” is not derogatory. If you can travel to the heart of an ethnic community and use an alleged epithet without having your empty head flattened, then we will agree that the word is innocuous.
If you travel to East St. Louis and start referring to the locals as “darkies,” you will not leave the neighborhood alive. Therefore the word is derogatory.
If you travel to one of the poverty-stricken reservations in the Midwest, find a group of young men, and start referring to them as “redskins,” there is a good chance your medical coverage will be put to the test. Therefore the word is derogatory.
All of the glibertarians here should put their money where their mouth is and offer money for one of you to run a field test in a reservation. Or better yet, Turley should donate the money because this is a recurring theme of his. Turley, Justice Holmes, Elwin Thrasher, Squeeky, and Bailers77 are all good candidates to run the experiment, given that they think the word is innocuous.
Let me guess, another old white guy that is offended for other people who aren’t around to express their own outrage. Nothing like having an unbiased arbiter of legal issues.
We no longer use the epithet “nigger” and by the same token, we shouldn’t use the racial slur “redskin.” It’s just that simple.
I think it is unseemly behaviour for a federal judge to engage in this kind of forced groupthink behavior. He is better suited to sit on the bench in North Korea. Not good when a judge gets bit by the publicity bug.
This whole “Redskin” controversy is nothing but a manufactured outrage so that some of the do gooder groups can have something to raise money over. Not one injun will be one bit better if the name is changed.
And to VinceJ, I do not find the name offensive and I am 1/16 Choctaw. Lots of folks with Injun blood in East Texas and we are proud of it.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It is obvious that “Judge” Messitte needs to recuse himself. His footnote clearly indicates prejudice against one of the parties in the action. What else can one conclude if he cannot bring himself to write their name?
His credentials and geographical location explain his mindset.
Note to Vince Jankoski – how can you assert that the name Redskins is unquestionably offensive when I disagree? There’s at least one who feels otherwise, ergo it is not “unquestionable”.
Professor, in regards to your statement, ‘The question is whether it is appropriate to limit the use of the name in an opinion when there is considerable public debate over whether it is offensive’ First, those are two separate arguments; using the name in the opinion is distinct from considerable public debate over whether it is offensive.
Many things are debated but that doesn’t make both sides right. Slavery was debated, suffrage was debated, child labor was debated, school desegregation was debated, the earth being the center of the universe was debated and so on. Debating that the Washington football team name isn’t offensive doesn’t mean it isn’t. I am reminded of the Potter Stewart porn quip, ‘I know it when I see it.’ and the Washington football team name is an ‘I know it when I hear it’ moment.
Judge Messitte is from the Washington, DC area. If he is a football fan at all, he probably grew up rooting for the Redskins. I would be interested to hear whether this supposition is correct.
It is one thing for the judge to refrain from using the term “Redskins” in his opinions. It is quite another for him to ban attorneys and witnesses from using the term in open court.
There is something very obvious that is lost in all this discussion about the term “Redskins”. Sportswriters and others calling for an end to used of the term “Redskins” are happy to tell Redskins’ owner Dan Snyder to give up the name. Of course, this would cost Snyder financially. The name “Redskins” sells and when Snyder bought the team, part of the purchase price went to the name.
Critics have an obvious way to solve their perceived problem. If they do not like the name, simply purchase the rights to the trademark and retire it. That way the folks who do not like the name could eliminate it and Snyder would not be hurt financially. The Native American tribe who is behind the push to take away trademark protection, the Oneida tribe from New York, owns a casino. They could take a few days profit from the casino and buy the trademark from Snyder. Do not hold your breath waiting for this to happen. It appears that the detractors of the term “Redskins” do not want to put their money where their mouths are.
Disclaimer: The name “Redskins” is unquestionably offensive.
We have become far to focused on the superficial in this country. A court should deal with reality. The team was called the REDSKINS during th period in which the facts that form the basis of the claim occurred. The decision by the court to ban this word is ridiculous. I find many words offensive but that is what living in a diverse country is all about. If we ban all the words people find offensive, pretty soon we won’t have a language.
I wonder if this could be grounds for a change of judge motion based upon possible prejudice.