Washington Redskins name opinion polls

Controversy over the name of the Washington Redskins has led to the use of public opinion polling to establish whether the term "redskin" is insulting to Native Americans, and whether it should be changed. Poll results have been criticized by scholars and Native American leaders as being erroneous, misleading, and indicative of white privilege.

Louis Gray, president of the Tulsa Indian Coalition Against Racism and a member of the Osage Nation, said in 2013, "You wouldn't [take a poll] with any other race. You wouldn't have African-Americans vote to decide whether or not any sort of racial epithet would be offensive."

While varying somewhat, national opinion polls consistently indicate that a majority of the general public do not advocate a name change.

The September 2014 national poll found that 68 percent think the name is not disrespectful of Native Americans, 19 percent say it shows "some" disrespect, and 9 percent say it is "a lot" disrespectful. This is in contrast to polls of DC, Maryland, and Virginia fans; a small majority of whom said that the word "redskin" is offensive to Native Americans in at least some contexts by 59 percent, 56 percent, and 53 percent.

Polls seeking to provide evidence of the opinion of Native Americans suffer from many limitations. First is the small size of the population, less than one percent of the total population of the United States. It takes months of sampling in order to gather a statistically significant sample. The most significant difficulty has been the problem of using self-identification as the only means of identifying Native Americans.

While not specific to the Redskins, a survey conducted in 2002 by The Harris Poll for Sports Illustrated (SI) found that 81 percent of Native Americans who live outside traditional Indian reservations and 53 percent of Indians on reservations did not find the names or images used by sports team to be discriminatory. The authors of the article concluded that "Although most Native American activists and tribal leaders consider Indian team names and mascots offensive, neither Native Americans in general nor a cross section of U.S. sports fans agree. According to the article, "There is a near total disconnect between Indian activists and the Native American population on this issue." Soon after the SI article, a group of five social scientists experienced in researching the mascot issue published a journal article arguing against the validity of this survey and its conclusions. They state, "The confidence with which the magazine asserts that a 'disconnect' between Native American activists and Native Americans exists on this issue belies the serious errors in logic and accuracy made in the simplistic labeling of Native Americans who oppose mascots as 'activists.'"

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