Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc.

Brief Fact Summary.

The Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (Texas SCV) applied to have a new specialty license plate issued by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (Texas DMV). The proposed license plate had two confederate flags on it, and the Texas DMV ultimately voted to deny Texas SCV’s application. Texas SCV brought suit.

Synopsis of Rule of Law.

License plates are government speech, and thus more easily subjected to content restrictions than private speech, under the First Amendment.

Facts.

In August 2009, the Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (Texas SCV) applied to have a new specialty license plate issued by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (Texas DMV). The proposed license plate had two confederate flags on it: one in the organization’s logo, and one as the background of the plate. The Texas DMV had a policy stating that it “may refuse to create a new specialty license plate if the design might be offensive to any member of the public.” The board in charge of approving new specialty plates received multiple negative comments from the public regarding this plate and ultimately voted to deny Texas SCV’s application. Texas SCV brought suit claiming that their First Amendment rights were violated.

Issue.

Is rejection of the Texas SCV’s specialty license plate with an image of the Confederate flag on it a violation of Texas SCV’s First Amendment right?

Held.

No, rejection of the Texas SCV’s specialty license plate is not a violation of Texas SCV’s First Amendment right.

Dissent.

Justice Alito

With over 350 varieties of specialty plates, the plates seem more like an expression of the individual drivers, rather than the state of Texas. As such, the specialty license plates are a limited public forum for private expression and Texas rejecting the confederate flag design because it might be offensive is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

Discussion.

Specialty license plates issued pursuant to Texas’ statutory scheme is classified as government speech and thus not subject to scrutiny under the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. Reason being, Texas and other states have long used license plates to convey messages. Moreover, the public closely associates license plates with the state–Texas license plates are essentially government IDs and issuers of ID typically do not permit the placement on their IDs of messages with which they do not wish to be associated. Finally, Texas maintains direct control over the messages on its specialty plates from design to final approval.