The Slants head to the high court

You may never have heard of The Slants, but the rock band offers the U.S. Supreme Court a chance to fortify the First Amendment’s free speech protections. The court on Wednesday will hear a case involving the band and its unique moniker. The appeal comes courtesy of the Obama administration, which apparently believes that federal trademark law is exempt from the Bill of Rights. The case also has ramifications for the NFL’s Washington Redskins, the subject of a more high-profile controversy over the franchise’s long-time nickname.

The Slants are an Asian-American group from Portland, Ore. The band’s founder, Simon Tam, said he chose the name in order to transform a term sometimes used as a slur into a point of ethnic pride. “Words aren’t equipped with venomous impact on their own,” he said. “They have to be tied to motive and rooted in context.”

But back in 2011, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected the group’s effort to register their name, citing a provision of the law that allows the office to deny such protection to “scandalous, immoral or disparaging marks.” The band went to court. The case against the patent office should be airtight despite arguments by those who would distinguish commercial speech from other communication. The government is denying certain legal rights to the band based on the content of their message. The state has set an arbitrary standard intended to limit specific types of speech and to be interpreted at the whim of federal bureaucrats. How does that comport with the First Amendment?

In 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 9-3 that the patent folks had run afoul of the Constitution. “If the government could deny a benefit to a person because of his constitutionally protected speech or associations,” the majority opinion noted, “his exercise of those freedoms would in effect be penalized and inhibited.”

The case becomes even more important given efforts to use the power of the state to curtail “offensive” expression. The First Amendment will be seriously wounded if the court allows the government to use its regulatory authority to police language that some might find objectionable.

The Slants named their latest release “The Band Who Must Not Be Named.” But such cheekiness obscures the vital issues surrounding this case. “We need to allow freedom of expression, especially [for] those you disagree with most,” Mr. Tam told USA Today.

Indeed, it may not be fashionable to say it these days, but the First Amendment protects even distasteful utterances or expressions. And that’s why the U.S. Supreme should rule in favor of The Slants.