'XXXskin is the most derogatory name a Native American can be called,' the officials write. Redskins name 'indecent'?

The Washington Redskins name, long accused by many of being an offensive moniker to Native Americans, may also be flat-out indecent, according to some former FCC officials and public interest advocates.

In a letter to Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, former Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Nicholas Johnson, and others contend that an indecency case could be made against broadcasters who air the offensive name.


“It is impermissible under law that the FCC would condone, or that broadcasters would use, obscene pornographic language on live television,” they write. “This medium uses government owned airwaves in exchange for an understanding that it will promote the public interest. Similarly, it is inappropriate for broadcasters to use racial epithets as part of normal, everyday reporting.”

Never using the team’s name, they chastise broadcasters for using a name that is equivalent to the “n-word.”

“XXXskin is the most derogatory name a Native American can be called. It is an unequivocal racial slur,” they write. “As The Washington Post’s Mike Wise pointed out, ‘America wouldn’t stand for a team called the Blackskins — or the Mandingos, the Brothers, the Yellowskins, insert your ethnic minority here.’”

Hundt also pens an op-ed in The Washington Post saying broadcasters have the power to force Snyder’s hand.

“If broadcasters follow their tradition, they will insist that Snyder no longer put them in the intolerable position of using a derogatory term to describe his team," Hundt writes.

He told POLITICO that it’s time for the commission to take action.

“The FCC should hold a hearing,” he wrote in an email “It would be on ESPN. Shame the name.”

This isn’t the first time a legal venue has been tested in an attempt to force a name change. A trademark lawsuit brought by a group of Native Americans was thrown out on procedural issues in federal court, but another case is working its way through the system.

For the FCC to deem the Redskins name indecent, it would have to expand the same indecency doctrine that has been tied in knots since the commission changed its standard to include “fleeting expletives” and flashes of nudity.

In a public notice issued Monday, the commission is seeking opinions about how it should approach the indecency conundrum since the Supreme Court in June ruled 8-0 that FCC policy ran afoul of due process by failing to give the networks fair notice that they had broken the rules.

Since then, the agency has dropped more than 1 million of the 1.5 million indecency complaints that had built up. Most of the dropped complaints were due to expired statutes of limitations or cases that fell outside of FCC jurisdiction, ran afoul of settled precedent or contained insufficient information to prosecute.

While obscene speech has no constitutional protection, indecent speech does. Under the law, FCC rules and court decisions, the commission can fine broadcasters for airing indecent speech outside of the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. safe harbor.

Material is indecent if it "in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." Under current law, broadcasters face a fine of up to $325,000 per incident and could lose their licenses to operate.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 12:42 p.m. on April 5, 2013.