Urban Outfitters Asked To Remove ‘Navajo’ Products From Stores Worldwide

by Justin Fenner | 3:17 pm, October 22nd, 2011

The Urban Outfitters Navajo products controversy won’t go away — it’s actually spreading. The retailer now has not only a cease and desist order from the legal team at the Navajo Nation, but also a petition signed by several thousands of people asking that the offending products be stricken from its worldwide network of stores.

After Sarah Houston Brown posted an open letter on Racialicious this Columbus Day, calling for the store to remove the products and apologize to the Navajo people for appropriating their name for profit, the store renamed the products in its stores in the United States.

But that hasn’t proven good enough for other people hurt and offended by the products. Tiffanie Wilson, a member of the Blackfoot Nation, started a petition on Change.org to get the products pulled. It now has 13,000 signatures, all from people who want the products pulled worldwide.

If public furor isn’t enough to get Urban to get rid of the products altogether, maybe legal action will be. The Wall Street Journal reports that The Navajo Nation sent the store a cease and desist letter this week, which outlines the ways in which the retailer violates the Nation’s trademark with its products.

“The Navajo Nation is vigilant and takes appropriate action in society, the law, and the market to protect one of its most cherished elements: the Navajo name,” said Navajo Nation Attorney General Harrison Tsosie, in a press release today. “So when companies sell products that have absolutely no connection to the Navajo Nation, its entities or its people, the Navajo Nation does not regard this as benign or trivial.”

Nor should they. And we hope the Nation and its supporters will continue to rouse legal rabble until the products get pulled altogether.

[WSJ]

Navajo Nation Navajo Products urban outfitters