Thomas Prol moderates first amendment free speech program

SPARTA — Simon Tam of the rock and “the Slants,” who won a free-speech case that was taken all the way to the Supreme Court, Matal vs. Tam, gave the keynote address at a program on controversial Court decisions Sept. 23 at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick.
Thomas Prol, a partner at Laddey, Clark & Ryan, moderated the legal-education program which also featured remarks by Tam’s attorney.
Tam recently won his landmark decision under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. He successfully fought to trademark his rock band’s name, which had been previously denied as disparaging speech. The case raised questions about the government’s efforts to police names that may be offensive to one group or another, and struck down governmental intrusion in defining disparaging speech in the trademark review processes.
Tam said he chose the name to make fun of a word that had been used as a slur against Asians, and thereby to “drain” it of any derogatory impact. The Supreme Court struck down the part of the trademark law that called for US Patent and Trademark Office staff to make assessments about whether speech is offensive, stating, “[w]e now hold that this provision violates the Free Speech Clause of the 1st Amendment . . . It offends a bedrock 1st Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend the First Amendment.”
Following the keynote address from Tam, Thomas Prol hosted Tam’s counsel, Rutgers Law School Dean Ron Chen, and other notable attorneys for a roundtable discussion regarding some of the most important cases of the nation’s history.