The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to a Michigan school district’s ban on sweatshirts bearing the phrase Let’s Go Brandon. The decision leaves the ban in place.

The case began when a mother bought the sweatshirts for her two sons as Christmas gifts. School officials at Tri County Middle School told the boys to remove them, saying the slogan was widely understood as a stand-in for a profane insult aimed at former President Joe Biden.

A federal district court sided with the school. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling 2-1, writing that in the schoolhouse, vulgarity trumps politics. The court said the phrase’s veiled vulgarity allowed the school to ban it.

The family’s lawyers argued the ruling gives school officials too much power to suppress political speech based on their own views of what is vulgar. They noted the phrase itself contains no swear words.

The justices gave no reason for declining the case. The phrase became popular in 2021 after a TV reporter misheard a crowd chanting against Biden at a NASCAR race.