Students Sue School District In Trademark Fight Over Racial Justice Podcast Name
Black college students in Denver are suing the school district, indicating it is trying to “steal” their podcast name “Know Justice, Know Peace.”
The lawsuit states the students, who established the racial justice podcast “Know Justice, Know Peace” subsequent George Floyd’s murder in 2020, built “an fast hit” that bought the awareness of media stores which includes the “Today” exhibit, The Denver Write-up claimed.
The team — composed of 4 Black latest and previous students at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early College or university — sued Denver Community Educational institutions in federal court on Monday. The district submitted a few trademark purposes, like 1 condition software and two federal applications, for the identify, according to the lawsuit.
A Colorado trademark registration referenced in reporting by Chalkbeat Colorado reveals the district explained the collection as “offering details about inequities in the educational process [and] providing answers for implementing, improving, [and] sustaining fairness.”
The lawsuit explained an irony in the district’s energy to trademark the identify.
“The irony of DPS’s makes an attempt … is that DPS has for years fallen way small on Black background, racial justice and schooling around these crucial problems,” the lawsuit said. “That their newly discovered and noticeably tardy motivation to handle racial concerns had to appear in this form is a sad commentary on the condition of DPS.”
A spokesperson for Denver General public Educational institutions, just after originally not providing remark “due to the pending litigation,” explained to HuffPost that the district seems forward to the authorized procedure and “clearing up any misinformation that is in the criticism.”
“It is regrettable that Mr. Jeffrey Kass [the student’s attorney] has misrepresented the details and regulation in an attempt to push the narrative that DPS did anything other than assert its rights by way of the legal process,” the spokesperson wrote.
“We are upset that we had been unable to occur to a mutually agreeable resolution with these pupils, and we stay open up to additional conversations.”
District Deputy Superintendent Anthony Smith achieved with pupils and their mothers and fathers in an effort and hard work to “coerce and bully” them into declaring the district owned the trademark, in accordance to the lawsuit.
“Notably, it is your clientele who are liable for trademark infringement,” the district’s attorney explained in a letter to the students’ law firm.
Chalkbeat documented that an legal professional for the district despatched a letter in August to previous principal Kimberly Grayson, who was involved in the podcast’s development, with regards to her registration of a enterprise named “Know Justice, Know Peace: The Just take LLC.”
The letter, which Chalkbeat explained it acquired by a public documents ask for, claimed the name belonged to Denver Public Schools and explained the podcast as created with district machines on its property.
Grayson claimed in an e mail to district staff members acquired by Chalkbeat that she registered the small business since she had still left the college and the pupils required to report the podcast independently.
She wrote that the district was contradicting by itself for expressing its stance on fairness when also stating it “OWNS 4 Black younger ladies’ picture, voice, and information,” in accordance to Chalkbeat.