Erik Brady

USA TODAY Sports

Meeting over Washington NFL team%27s controversial name comes during Super Bowl buildup in New York City

Team owner Daniel Snyder has called %27Redskins%27 name a badge of honor and says he will not change it

U.N. human rights officer says issue is important in group%27s work to fight racism in sports

The Oneida Indian Nation is scheduled to meet with human rights representatives of the United Nations on Friday to discuss the Washington NFL club's team name - and the team says the U.N. should be working on world peace.

Oneida Nation representative Ray Halbritter is set to speak with Ivan Simonovic, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights at the U.N. in New York, just as the National Football League is preparing for its seminal event, the Super Bowl, with events in New York and northern New Jersey all next week.

"Given all the wars around the world, starvation, famine and the nuclear proliferation problems the U.N. is dealing with, surely they have more important things to worry about than a football's team name that is supported by the vast majority of the American people," team spokesman Tony Wyllie told USA TODAY Sports.

"I am very heartened by this opportunity to have a dialogue … about this important moral, human and civil rights issue," Halbritter said. "It's very encouraging to see national and now international leaders potentially recognizing the harmful impacts of using this term that denigrates Indian peoples."

Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington NFL team, called the term Redskins "a badge of honor" in an open letter to his team's fans in October and told USA TODAY Sports in May that he will never change it.

The U.N.'s Human Rights Council describes itself online as an inter-governmental body within the U.N. system, responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe.

"The Human Rights Council has appointed a dedicated independent expert to look into the issue of business and human rights," U.N. human rights officer Giorgia Passarelli said by email. "This particular case could be of interest to a number of U.N. human rights mechanisms, including … the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Special Rapporteur on Racism, Xenophobia and Racial Discrimination.

"Also, beside the Human Rights Council, the matter is relevant in the context of the work that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has been doing on the issue of racism in sports."

Last month, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of civil rights groups including the NAACP, passed a resolution urging Snyder to change his team's name.

"We approached the U.N. and asked if they would (take a look at) the power of the NFL brand and its ambitions to broaden its brand to the rest of the world," Halbritter said. "This is a first meeting and hopefully they'll recognize the significance of it and look further into it. Language is important. It is powerful and it can be harmful."