The FCC should hold an open forum with...

The FCC should hold an open forum with broadcasters to discuss whether they should voluntarily stop using the name “Redskins” for Washington’s NFL team, said a group of former Democratic FCC officials and communications attorneys, academics and activists in a letter sent to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn Thursday. Former FCC Chairman Reid Hundt -- one of the letter’s co-signers -- said it had its genesis in a discussion he had with Minority Media and Telecommunications Council President David Honig, who also signed the letter. “We decided a disparagement of one minority group is a disparagement of all minority groups,” said Hundt in an interview. An FCC forum on the Redskins name “need not answer any questions of legality nor necessarily lead to regulatory intervention,” said the letter. Instead, the forum would focus on “self-regulation” by broadcasters and its application to the Redskins’ name. “The FCC has unquestioned authority to convene an open forum with broadcasters to discuss whether they should voluntarily stop using the name,” said the letter, citing several media personalities who have said they will no longer use the word “Redskins.” Those who signed the letter “hope that an open forum hosted by the FCC will encourage broadcasters to follow suit,” said a news release issued by Hundt. By using its authority to convene the forum, the FCC “has the opportunity to act as a principled and transparent leader during a time of distressing difficulty in the nation’s capital,” said the letter. The letter was signed by former FCC commissioners Jonathan Adelstein, Nicholas Johnson and Tyrone Brown, Ambassador Karen Kornbluh, former FCC Chief of Staff Blair Levin, former FCC General Counsel Christopher Wright now of Wiltshire Grannis, public-interest attorney Andrew Schwartzman, who consults for Free Press, Charles Firestone of the Aspen Institute, former NTIA administrators Henry Geller and Larry Irving, Communications Workers of America Telecommunications Policy Director Debbie Goldman, Wiltshire Grannis telecom lawyer John Nakahata, Best Best municipal lawyer Nicholas Miller, the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development and others.