Trump's demand for Washington NFL team name change ignores years of psychological data, experts say

Source: Associated Press

Trump’s demand for Washington NFL team name change ignores years of psychological data, experts say

By GRAHAM LEE BREWER
Updated 8:30 AM EDT, July 27, 2025

President Donald Trump is threatening to hold up a new stadium deal if Washington’s NFL team did not restore its name to a racial slur, despite decades of psychological research showing the negative mental health impacts of Native American mascots.

The president is demanding a private company change its name to something that researchers have linked to a variety of negative mental health outcomes, particularly for children, said Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians. The organization has been pushing back on stereotypes of Native Americans since the 1950s, including Native sports mascots.

“This is a big reminder with this administration that we’re going to take some backward steps,” Macarro said. “We have our studies, we have our receipts, and we can demonstrate that this causes real harm.”

More than two decades of research on Native mascots have shown they lead to heightened rates of depression, self-harm, substance abuse and suicidal ideation among Indigenous peoples, and those impacts are the greatest on children. Citing this data, the American Psychological Association has been recommending the retirement of Native mascots since 2001.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/washington-commanders-trump-73f3f59ad00c34b2ee92cec9b247525c