FARGO (KFGO) – Despite claims to the contrary in a newly-filed lawsuit, the group challenging the NFL’s Washington Commanders football team in federal court is not incorporated the state of North Dakota.
The Native American Guardian’s Association’s (NAGA) suit against the football team, its leadership and another Native American nonprofit hinges on defamation and civil rights claims that the defendants called NAGA a “fake group” and worked together to “indirectly” attack Native Americans and “attack NAGA’s integrity.”
The federal complaint filed Monday states multiple times that NAGA is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation, “duly incorporated in North Dakota.”
According to the Secretary of State’s office, NAGA’s status in North Dakota has been “inactive – involuntary” since 2017. NAGA was filed only as a trade name for another North Dakota nonprofit group called Oyesna Corporation in 2015. The Oyesna Corporation is listed as “not in good standing” with the state and its status has also been “inactive-involuntary” since 2017.
IRS records for NAGA show the nonprofit group was granted federal tax exemption in May of 2017. NAGA’s most recent publicly available tax returns are from 2019 and the organization’s address is listed in Devils Lake. In it, the group designates itself as a “federal, state, or local government, or governmental unit” in the Reason for Public Charity Status section of the form, a designation usually reserved for museums, libraries, and hospitals that get the majority of their support from government entities.
A spokesperson for NAGA says the group is actually incorporated in Virginia but claims it is still headquartered in North Dakota. A search of the Virginia Secretary of State’s business registry shows NAGA as active and in good standing. NAGA has six directors on its board. Only one, NAGA’s president Eunice Davidson, is a North Dakota resident. The group’s registered agent is based in Virginia.
NAGA championed a petition in August that demanded the team’s new owners change the Commanders nickname back to Redskins which has collected over 133,000 signatures. At the end of August, Commanders President Jason Wright told reporters that a return to the former nickname “is not being considered. Period.”
When a luxury box owner expressed support for NAGA’s petition, a team executive said NAGA was a fake group. NAGA’s defamation complaint says that comment was racist and false, and claims the team was attempting to “silence” NAGA and cast doubt on the group’s legitimacy by conspiring with the National Congress of American Indians to build a public counter-narrative.
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