A white supremacist group that sparked controversy three years ago by distributing racist material on the Northwestern campus is moving its headquarters out of Illinois.

World Church of the Creator leader Matt Hale announced in December that the group was relocating its headquarters to Riverton, Wyo., in order to evade a federal court’s decision that would force the organization to give up its name.

The decision, which Hale has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear on appeal, came in the case of TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation v. World Church of the Creator. Judge Joan H. Lefkow, an NU Law School graduate, ruled that Hale’s organization can no longer call itself the “World Church of the Creator” because the Truth Foundation had previously registered a trademark for the term. The Truth Foundation is another religious organization that, according to court documents, believes in “universal love and respect.”

Lefkow ordered Hale to turn over all printed materials bearing the name and surrender Web site addresses including www.church-ofthecreator.com to the foundation. Hale has refused to comply with the order and could face imprisonment if the court holds him in contempt at a hearing scheduled for today.

In a press release that appears on the group’s Web site, Hale asserts that the organization’s printed materials, such as books and pamphlets, are now “safe and secure” in Wyoming.

But according to NU Law Professor Shari Diamond, who specializes in trademark law, simply moving the printed materials to Wyoming will not be enough to protect the group’s title because the patent was registered with the federal government rather than with the Illinois state government.

Hale’s group gained notoriety on the NU campus after a series of incidents in 1999 and early 2000. Over the Fourth of July weekend in 1999, a one-time member of Hale’s organization shot and killed Ricky Byrdsong, a former NU men’s basketball coach. A few months later, a Church of the Creator pamphlet alleging that Jews had taken over the government and turned it against “white people” was distributed around the Evanston campus.

The organization was told that the distribution of materials by religious groups not registered with the University Chaplain was prohibited. Hale then tried to form a student religious organization on campus supporting his beliefs. To initiate the process of receiving recognition at NU, a group must acquire 15 NU students’ signatures. In January 2000, Hale visited NU in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain those signatures.

The Daily reported that NU faculty, administrators and students were united in their disapproval of Hale’s group but disagreed over how to react. NU President Henry Bienen and others argued that the best response was to simply ignore Hale’s visit and deny him any publicity.

“Why should I dignify this bunch of crazies with a reply?” Bienen said at the time. “They don’t deserve it.”

But some students criticized Bienen’s response and organized a protest of Hale’s visit. About 200 people met Hale in front of the Technological Institute, and some crowd members threw snowballs at him. Three men unaffiliated with the university were arrested following an altercation in which John Schlissman, a 17-year-old student at nearby Deerfield High School — the only person to step out in support of Hale’s racist ideology — was punched, kicked and pushed to the ground by a group of protesters.

In the three years since Hale’s visit, the Church of the Creator has failed to create an affiliated student organization at NU. University Chaplain Timothy Stevens, who receives applications for recognition of new religious organizations on campus, said Hale has never been able to garner the necessary signatures.

“The policy (on the recognition of new religious groups) did what it’s intended to do — (it) made it difficult, I mean made it impossible, for him to establish a group,” Stevens said. “I don’t think that he ever dreamed that he would have a lot of supporters at Northwestern, but he got a response, and what he was looking for was publicity … I think it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to get a group.”