It’s never clear what side the ACLU will take (if any) in conflicts between the First Amendment and “hate speech” and its various friends and relations, but to the organization’s credit it has just come out in opposition to the Patent and Trademark Office’s decision canceling the Washington Redskins’ trademark, because of a federal statute prohibiting marks that “may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”
Congratulations, ACLU! Too bad it was nowhere to be seen back in 1993 when the U.S. Senate voted down the theretofore routine renewal of a design patent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which I wrote about here in a very early post on this blog.
According to then Senator Carol Mosely-Braun (D, Ill.),
“The issue is whether or not Americans such as myself who believe in the promise of this country … will have to suffer the indignity of being reminded time and time again that at one point in this country’s history we were human chattel,” she said. “We were property. We could be traded, bought and sold.” The Confederate flag, she said, “is something that has no place in our modern times … no place in this body … no place in our society.”
History, of course, if not whitewashed, often reminds us of unpleasant and unwelcome truths.And then there’s some irony in denying the UDC its design patent (sort of like a trademark), the effect of which would probably lead to an increase, rather than decrease, in the use of the hated Confederate symbol by allowing other groups to use it.
