President Donald Trump has threatened to upend the Washington Commanders’ proposed deal to secure a new stadium in D.C. if they don’t return to the former name it was called from 1933 until 2020.
“The Washington ‘Whatever’s’ should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
A leader at one Native American advocacy group said it’s time to close the book on this debate.
“This conversation has been going on for over 50 years,” said Matthew Campbell, deputy director of the Native American Rights Fund, which advocates for issues important to the Native American community.
He told WTOP several groups have established the former name as a racist slur, though that is widely disputed.
“The name has been changed, so there’s no need to go back and tread old ground here,” he said.
In 2005, the American Psychological Association recommended the name change and that of other teams, based on research showing the harmful effects of “racial stereotyping and inaccurate racial portrayals, including the particularly harmful effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social identity, development and self-esteem of American Indian young people.”
Campbell criticized the Trump administration for trying to strong arm the District over perceived “wokeness.”
“Names like the R-word and others that have been utilized as mascots and depictions of Native people are extremely harmful to Native youth,” Campbell said. “It’s time to put this to bed.”
A 2020 study by the University of California, Berkeley, reported that the old moniker was deemed offensive by nearly half of the more than 1,000 Native Americans polled. The study interviewed more than 1,000 self-identified Native Americans across 148 tribes in all 50 states about their attitudes towards Native mascots.
Washington faced pressure to change the former name for years. In 2013, then-owner Dan Snyder said the team would “never” change its name.
Over the years, multiple Native American activists rallied against Washington’s nickname outside its Landover, Maryland, stadium. A 2020 documentary “Imagining the Indian” tackled the debate of using Native mascots, with a focus on the team’s insistence to keep using the name.
In July 2020, Snyder announced that the team was retiring the former name and developing a new name and design that would “enhance the standing of our proud, tradition rich franchise and inspire our sponsors, fans and community for the next 100 years.”
The franchise was rechristened to the Commanders in February 2022.
What can Trump do?
Does Trump have the authority to meddle in the stadium deal? In the words of George Washington University adjunct political science professor Julius Hobson: Yes.
“Two points, one is the Home Rule charter does give the federal government that power to intervene,” Hobson said. “Also, when Congress created the control board in the 1990s, even though the control board itself has gone out of existence, the statute still remains.”
That gives broad authority to the federal government over D.C. affairs, and it appears the administration intends on using that authority.
“The president has the authority to step in whenever he wants,” Hobson said.
He cited a 1965 case in which then President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to get home rule through Congress. The effort was blocked. So he issued an executive order eliminating the three commissioners in place to oversee D.C. on behalf of Congress.
Johnson then created an appointed mayor and city council, which became the local form of government, which was later subject to the city electorate.
WTOP’s José Umaña contributed to this story.
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