Question

The NBA forced Donald Sterling to sell his stake in the Los Angeles Clippers because he made disparaging remarks about blacks, but the NFL still has a team called the Redskins. Did the NBA go too far, or has the NFL not gone far enough in combatting discrimination?

Answer 1

The name Redskins involved with the NFL team belongs the native American and it is the basis of calling this team is racist and discriminatory. In the past, courts of laws, cancelled the trademarks having redskins name, but Supreme Court cancelled these decisions of the lower courts of law with a reasoning that cancelation of the trademark will be the violation of the freedom of speech that is considered as a fundamental right. It means that only using the name of redskins, does not make the team to be discriminatory unless a discriminatory conduct or racial remark disparaging the people on the basis of skin color, ethnicity, sex or race among the other factors, takes place. Since such conduct has not yet proved, by simply putting a name of redskins, hence the Redskins team is not racial in nature. Therefore, NFL should not be blamed to be lenient w.r.t. discrimination and having a Redskins team. In contrary to this, Donald was forced to sale his stake due to his racial remarks that could not be tolerated. If NBA could not take the action, then other constitutional bodies using title VII of the civil rights act, 1964 could do that. But, it is not the case with NFL and Redskins.