Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Should Washington Redskins Owner Dan Snyder Change Football Team’s Name?

Professional sports teams should seriously consider moving away from “the use of hurtful and offensive names, mascots and logos,” the Anti Defamation League said.

The ultimate decision to change a team’s name, however, “should come from the team’s ownership with input from the fan base. It is up to them to decide to let go of this hurtful tradition,” Abraham Foxman, ADL national director, said in a statement.

The statement was released Tuesday as the Jewish owner of the Washington Redskins, Dan Snyder, has come under increasing pressure to change the name of his professional football team.

Other teams have also come under fire, including the Cleveland Indians, whose hook-nosed, red-faced mascot Chief Wahoo has been called racist and offensive.

Teams such as the Redskins and the Indians “have a responsibility to be sensitive to the legitimate hurt that offensive names, mascots and logos cause,” Foxman said. “Tradition matters, but tradition should not justify the perpetuation of such names and mascots. A name change will not impact how a team fares on the field, or in the standings.”

On Sunday, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones defended Snyder’s decision to adhere to the Redskin’s name.

“It would be a real mistake – a real mistake – to think that Dan, who is Jewish, has a lack of sensitivity regarding somebody’s feelings,” said Jones, according to the Washington Post. “I promise you that.”

The comments came after President Obama last week said that if he were the owner of the team he would consider changing the name because it is offensive to some people.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.