Two members of Congress called on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to take a formal position in support of a name change for the Washington Redskins. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Two members of Congress sent a letter to National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday imploring the sports league to abandon the controversial name of the Washington, D.C., team, the Redskins, and hinting that the NFL’s tax-exempt status could be in jeopardy.

The Redskins’ 80-year-old name came under renewed fire last year, with civil rights groups, including the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) calling it degrading and racist — despite Goodell’s repeated assertion that the name is an honorific.

“The NFL can no longer ignore this and perpetuate the use of this name as anything but what it is: a racial slur," Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., wrote in the letter. “The National Football League is on the wrong side of history.”

Cantwell, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and Cole, a member of the Native American caucus, also hinted at the possibility that the team’s refusal to consider a name change could affect the league’s tax-exempt status.

Despite accruing billions in annual revenue, the NFL is classified as a trade organization and therefore tax exempt.

“It is not appropriate for this multibillion dollar 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization to perpetuate and profit from the continued degradation of tribes and Indian people,” Cantwell and Cole wrote.

Cantwell expanded on that possibility on Sunday, when a copy of the letter was released, in an interview with The New York Times.

“You’re getting a tax break for educational purposes, but you’re still embracing a name that people see as a slur and encouraging it,” she said.

The Washington Redskins dismissed the letter in an emailed statement to Al Jazeera on Monday.

“With all the important issues Congress has to deal with such as a war in Afghanistan to deficits to health care, don’t they have more important issues to worry about than a football team’s name?” the statement read.

“And given the fact that the name of (Cole's home state of) Oklahoma means ‘red people’ in Choctaw, this request is a little ironic.”