No use for a name and organization that’s mud, now is it?

J.T. Wheatley (@jacktwheatley)

In an email sent late Thursday night, neo-confederate Jason Lee Van Dyke, former lawyer for the Proud Boys, said he would be terminating the trademark for the far-right neo-fascist gang, effectively releasing the name back into the public domain.

The decision follows a barrage of blows and growing internal discontent within the group after the January 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C., where a number of members were arrested, including their leader and FBI informant Enrique Tarrio, who is facing felony charges in DC for vandalism and weapons violations. Last week, Van Dyke sent a letter to Tarrio terminating his license to use the trademark effective immediately. In it, Jason cites incidences with substandard purchases of Proud Boy merchandise, neo-fascist imagery posted online by members, and complaints about the open promotion of white nationalism by members on social media, among a number of other reasons.

In the hours following, Alt-Right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos said on Telegram that “the Proud Boys’ leadership is so incompetent they never bothered to secure the organization’s trademark,” and that he was planning to offer to buy the trademark from Van Dyke. The plans involved gifting it back to “the fraternity” on the condition Tarrio “immediately step down, and renounce his claim to any leadership position beyond chapter president – for life.”

When asked for comment, Van Dyke said “Any conversations that I may or may not have had with Mr. Yiannopolous are privileged and I cannot discuss them with you or anyone else.” He added that what he “stated publicly about the trademark is true, but that conversations fell through after the Canadian government stupidly named the group a terrorist organization.”

Van Dyke’s recent attempts to distance himself from the group’s extensively documented flirtations with white nationalism is complicated by a 2019 recording of him on the phone attempting to join another neo-nazi terrorist organization, the Base.  

He joined the Proud Boys in 2017 and has said he began doing pro bono legal work that year at the request of founder Gavin McInnes following the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Van Dyke trademarked the name in 2018 for “association services,” including “organizing chapters of a fraternity and promoting the interests of the members thereof.” He recently noted that McInnes agreed to the move.

In the announcement, Van Dyke wrote that “the electronic filings are not processed yet, but because the events of last week have proven insufficient to some to show that I am done with the Proud Boys forever, last night I filed paperwork terminating all of the Proud Boys related entities that were formed in Texas (including the one with no assets that was mistakenly sued by that African-American church in DC).”

He added that “upon acceptance of that paperwork, it is back in the public domain.”

Van Dyke was first a radical far-right firebrand at Michigan State University in the late 90s. He was suspended from the school in 2001 for domestic violence and gun possession and finished his degree at the University of Dallas. He went on to join forces with white nationalist attorney Kyle Bristow during his leadership of the first-ever student based hate group, MSU Young Americans For Freedom. Since then, a number of Jason’s social media accounts have been suspended due to his frequent tendency to use racial epithets and threaten others on those platforms. In 2018, he was arrested for allegedly making a false police report, and since then, civil proceedings and an FBI recording revealed a detailed attempted assassination plot with the help of an Arizona Chapter of the Proud Boys. You can read more about Jason’s antics here, here, and here.

Termination of Proud Boys International (PDF)

Termination of Proud Boys Texas (PDF)

Termination of Proud Boys Trademark (PDF)