The Asian American rock group and activists, the “Slants”, gave a concert/talk Saturday evening, September 8, in the Ballroom of the Michigan League to students, staff, faculty and the general public to kick off the school year for the APIA Studies program. The event was cosponsored by the LSA Office of the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the Education Environment Committee of the UM Law School and WeListen, the grass-roots student group that organizes discussions of contentious topics. The ‘Slants” sang their songs depicting the Asian American experience and talked about the litigation they engaged in over their name. The “Slants” applied to trademark their name and was denied by the US government about 8 years ago. The basis for the denial was the rule that the government will not trademark terms that are slurs. The “Slants” were motivated to contest this ruling because they felt that the ruling was being applied in a discriminatory manner (e.g. the Washington R-skins is trademarked) and they wanted to reclaim the term slants, as in slant eyes, to drain the power of the term as a racial/ethnic slur. Not to mention that the denial might be an infringement of the First Amendment. The “Slants” fought this denial and won a Supreme Court case in 2017. This case and the social activism of the “Slants” have been featured in over 2,500 media presentations across 150 countries, including Rolling Stone, TIME, NPR and the New York Times. The concert/talk by the “Slants” was followed up by a panel discussion on Monday, September 17 that engaged the participants in thoughtful discussions regarding the case and the issues surrounding the ruling. The two “Slants” events were truly lively evenings for both the ears and mind.