Jeep faces being forced to change name over 'cultural appropriation' under woke professor's plan to overhaul federal law

Jeep should be forced to change the name of its Grand Cherokee SUV to prevent it profiting from cultural appropriation, a woke law professor claims.

J Janewa Osei-Tutu, a Ghanaian/Canadian/American intellectual property attorney and teacher at Miami University believes federal laws should be changed to 'protect cultural personality.'

I n her paper on race, racism and the law she argues that, similar to how Pepsi or Taylor Swift cannot have their names used without permission, cultural identities should not be profited from without consent.

'[W]e should also have a right to control not only the commercial use of our individual personal identities but also our collectively held cultural identities,' she writes.

Osei-Tutu refers to intellectual property laws as 'underinclusive - at least in relation to valuable intangible cultural heritage from indigenous communities and local communities from the global south.'

Her perceived flaws in the laws allow corporations to 'capture and monetize this unprotected resource, which means that it is exposed and subject to misappropriation.'

She specifically cites Jeep, which has sold the Grand Cherokee since 1992 and has even negotiated with the Cherokee Tribe over the usage of the name but stopped short of ditching it.

Her ideas amount to making 'cultural appropriation' illegal, according to conservative legal analyst Jonathan Turley.

'The proposal in this article would blow apart the copyright laws and use them to weaponize claims of cultural appropriation. It would codify the culture of viewpoint intolerance and speech regulation that currently characterizes higher education,' he writes.

It would force corporations to face 'endless lawsuits' and also end cultural influences that immigrants bring to American culture.

She’s utterly full of it. Something rubbed me the wrong way, and her argument that Taylor Swift can grant permission seems to fall apart when you are getting permission from a group of people. For example: Who do you go to, to get that permission. Something in my legal instincts were rebelling.

So I did the research, and what I got out of ChatGPT was:

1. The Right of Publicity Depends on an Identifiable Rights Holder

The analogy to Taylor Swift is legally weak because the right of publicity works only when there is:

a clearly identifiable person,
a legally cognizable owner of the right,
and someone authorized to license or enforce it.

Taylor Swift can sue because:

she is a defined legal person,
she owns the right,
and courts can identify damages and consent.

But “Cherokee culture” is not a singular legal person.

The immediate legal problem becomes:

Who owns the identity?
Who speaks for the group?
Which subgroup has authority?
What about dissenters within the group?
What about people with partial ancestry?
What about historical vs modern tribal governments?

American law generally dislikes rights that lack a clearly ascertainable rights holder because courts need:

standing,
traceable injury,
and a determinable plaintiff.

Without that, enforcement becomes arbitrary.

2. Cultural Identity Is Not Exclusive Property Under U.S. Law

U.S. intellectual property law protects:

original works (copyright),
source identifiers (trademark),
inventions (patent),
and individual likenesses (publicity rights).

It generally does not grant ownership over:

historical identity,
ethnicity,
language,
cuisine,
hairstyles,
or broad cultural references.

That limitation is deliberate.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly resisted creating “mutant copyright” doctrines that grant perpetual ownership over ideas, identities, or public-domain concepts.

“Cherokee” is historically and geographically descriptive. Once a term enters broad public vocabulary, American law is reluctant to grant monopolistic control over it.

That is especially true where:

the word has longstanding public usage,
consumers are unlikely to believe tribal endorsement exists,
and the term functions descriptively rather than deceptively.
3. The Proposal Collides With the First Amendment

This is probably the strongest constitutional counter.

If cultural groups obtain veto power over commercial uses of identity, then courts must decide:

what counts as “authentic” representation,
who may depict which culture,
and which uses are offensive enough to prohibit.

That creates serious viewpoint and speech problems.

Commercial expression still receives First Amendment protection.

The government generally cannot prohibit speech merely because:

a cultural group dislikes it,
finds it offensive,
or believes outsiders should not use it.

Courts are especially skeptical of laws that require permission before using words, symbols, or cultural references in expressive works.

A “cultural personality right” risks becoming:

a content-based speech restriction,
or even viewpoint discrimination.

Even Osei-Tutu reportedly acknowledges unresolved freedom-of-expression problems in the proposal.

4. The Theory Has No Limiting Principle

Another major legal weakness:

If Cherokee identity can be licensed property, why not:

Irish identity?
Southern identity?
Italian identity?
Texan identity?
Goth culture?
Hip-hop culture?

Once identity itself becomes property, the law has no principled stopping point.

Courts dislike doctrines without administrable boundaries.

The proposal risks creating:

perpetual monopolies over language and symbols,
overlapping ownership claims,
and massive uncertainty for commerce and speech.
5. Existing Law Already Covers Actual Deception or False Endorsement

American law already provides remedies where appropriate.

If Jeep falsely implied:

official sponsorship,
tribal partnership,
or endorsement by the Cherokee Nation,

then existing trademark and false advertising law could potentially address that.

But merely referencing a cultural term is usually not enough.

That distinction matters:

false endorsement is actionable,
mere cultural reference generally is not.
6. “Cultural Appropriation” Is Too Indeterminate for Enforcement

Courts generally require laws to be sufficiently definite.

A doctrine based on “cultural appropriation” creates vagueness problems:

How much borrowing counts?
How transformed must the use be?
Is admiration permissible?
Is satire?
Is historical depiction?

Vague standards are constitutionally dangerous because they chill lawful speech.

Businesses would avoid any cultural references at all to avoid litigation.

7. Indigenous Sovereignty Does Not Automatically Create IP Ownership

Federally recognized tribes possess certain sovereign powers, but sovereignty does not automatically create:

intellectual property ownership,
perpetual naming rights,
or exclusive control over historical references.

If Congress wanted to create such rights, it likely would need:

explicit statutory authorization,
careful tailoring,
and constitutional safeguards.

Absent that, courts are unlikely to infer sweeping identity-property rights from existing law.

So your “standing” intuition maps onto a deeper doctrinal issue:

U.S. law works best when rights are attached to clearly identifiable legal persons or entities with ascertainable ownership and injury.

A diffuse cultural identity does not fit comfortably into that framework.

And once courts try to force it in, they run into:

standing problems,
representation problems,
First Amendment conflicts,
vagueness concerns,
and administrability failures.

That is the core legal counterargument.

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