Photo by Kirsten Stanley.

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the law permitting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to turn down “disparaging” trademarks violates the First Amendment.

The case was brought by Simon Tam, the founder of a Portland, Ore.-based band named The Slants. The band’s name was rejected for trademark by the PTO in 2011 over claims that the name disparages Asian Americans. The Slants say the name is not meant to offend, but is instead a way to reclaim what is often seen as a slur.

The PTO denied the trademark citing the Lanham Act, a 71-year-old law that, in part, prohibits trademark protection for offensive names. Now, the Supreme Court says that law is unconstitutional.

“The disparagement clause violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his opinion for the court. “It offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.” The case was decided unanimously (Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was not on the court when the case was argued, did not participate.)

In a Facebook post, Tam called the ruling a vindication “not only for our The Slants, but all Americans who are fighting against paternal government policies that ultimately lead to viewpoint discrimination … Language and culture are powerful forms of expression and we are elated to know that the Supreme Court of the United States agree. Irony, wit, satire, parody … these are essential for democracy to thrive, these are weapons that neuter malice.”

Today’s decision will have implications for Washington’s football team, whose name is currently a dictionary-defined slur. The team is currently appealing a federal judge’s decision to uphold the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s cancellation of their trademark, because it is a racial slur and disparages Native Americans (and, per this website’s house style, is not fit for print). When SCOTUS agreed to hear The Slants’ case, the team asked the Supreme Court to review its trademark case as well. A federal appeals court in Richmond put the team’s case on ice while The Slants went to the highest court in the land.

The team can still use the name but without a trademark, it loses protections against counterfeit merchandise.In addition to calling the Lanham Act unconstitutional, the team’s legal strategy has also included pointing out other trademarks that are way more offensive than theirs, like Cracka Azz Skateboards, Ol Geezer Wines, Reformed Whores (a band who wrote a song about their inclusion in the legal brief), and more.

“The team is thrilled with today’s unanimous decision,” said team attorney Lisa Blatt in a statement. “The Supreme Court vindicated the team’s position that the First Amendment blocks the government from denying or cancelling a trademark registration based on the government’s opinion.”

Dan Snyder, the team’s owner, has said that the name “represents honor, represents respect, represents pride. Hopefully winning.”

But there’s been a concerted movement that disagrees, which calls itself Change The Mascot. It’s not giving up.

“This is an issue we have always believed will not be solved in a courtroom,” said Change the Mascot leaders National Congress of American Indians Executive Director Jackie Pata and Oneida Nation Representative Ray Halbritter in a statement. “If the NFL wants to live up to its statements about placing importance on equality, then it shouldn’t hide behind these rulings, but should act to the end this hateful and degrading slur.” (For what it’s worth, the NFL has said that, “a team’s name is a club’s decision. We recognize there are strong views on both sides of this.”)

A slew of local (and not-so-local) politicians want the name changed. The Interior Department under President Barack Obama said the team could not return to federally owned RFK Stadium without rebranding.

Synder’s response about when he’d change the name? “NEVER—you can use caps.”

The team’s name became the topic of a last-minute pro-Trump campaign ad in 2016. (Sample audio: “You thought you’d escape politics by focusing on football. Wrong! Hillary Clinton wants to mess up your football, too.”)

In addition to Washington’s football team, The Slants have found a disparate group of advocates in their corner, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, and the American Civil Liberties Union, which called today’s ruing a victory for the First Amendment.

“The government’s misguided effort to protect minorities from disparagement instead hurt members of that very community by hindering their right to compete in the marketplace of ideas,” the ACLU said in a statement.

When NPR asked Tam in January how he felt about Synder potentially benefiting from his lawsuit, he said, “We’ve been so obsessed with punishing villains like Dan Snyder, we don’t realize that there is this impact on bystanders. Those bystanders, in this case, would be the marginalized groups who have been trying to get their own trademarks registered. And to me, it’s more important to protect those communities than to worry about one racist guy getting his football team.”

SCOTUS Opinion by Rachel Kurzius on Scribd

This post has been updated.