Free Speech at the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court reaffirmed core free-speech principles in two cases on Monday, both decided without dissent.

FREE SPEECH In Matal v. Tam, the justices ruled that the government can’t pick and choose which trademarks it registers based on whether they offend certain people or groups. The case was brought by the Slants, an Asian-American dance-rock band that had chosen its name — a familiar slur against people of Asian descent — to defuse its negative power. The Patent and Trademark Office rejected the name under a provision in a 70-year-old federal law prohibiting the registration of trademarks that “disparage” any “persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols.”

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said the law violates a “bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.” That’s the right call. The First Amendment bars the government from discriminating among speakers based on their viewpoints.

The decision is likely to help the Washington Redskins, who lost their trademark protections in 2014 after years of complaints from Native American groups. At the time, this page supported the Trademark Office’s decision, and we still regard the Redskins name as offensive. Based on this case, however, we’ve since reconsidered our underlying position.

FREE SPEECH in Packingham v. North Carolina, the court struck down a North Carolina law that prohibited registered sex offenders from visiting social-networking websites that allow minors to become members of those websites or to create personal web pages. This would include sites like Facebook, Twitter, WebMD and The New York Times — online locations visited regularly by billions of people.

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