Supreme Court upholds rejection of Confederate flag license plate
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Texas had not violated any First Amendment rights in rejecting a group鈥檚 design for a specialty license plate bearing the Confederate battle flag.
In a 5-4 decision, the Court rejected the argument that license plates are considered private speech, as the group Sons of Confederate Veterans had asserted.
It was the first time the Department of Motor Vehicles board had ever turned down a Texas plate design, . Gov. Rick Perry has also to the plate.
鈥淲hen the government speaks, it is not barred by the Free Speech Clause from determining the content of what it says,鈥� Justice Stephen Breyer . 鈥淎 government is generally entitled to promote a program, espouse a policy, or take a position.听Were the Free Speech Clause interpreted otherwise, 鈥榠t is not easy to imagine how government would function.鈥欌��
first sued Texas in 2011, arguing that the license plate was private speech intended only to honor soldiers who had fought for the South. It had also brought the same suits against Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, .听
鈥淭his is a sad day for the First Amendment and for mutual respect and bridge-building among Americans of different viewpoints,鈥� Charles Kelly Barrow, the organization鈥檚 leader, Thursday.
Many states around the country allow private individuals or non-profit organizations to submit a design for a specialty license plate to state approval, CNN鈥檚 Supreme Court reporter.
鈥淎nd Texas, in this case, it drew the line against the Sons of Confederate Veterans," she added. "It said, 鈥榳e are not going to have the confederate flag on our license plates. That鈥檚 offensive.鈥欌��
To weigh the question, judges looked at other specialty license plates. Observing another design that read, 鈥渕ighty fine burgers,鈥� Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said, 鈥淚s that government speech?鈥� .
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, dissented from the opinion. that the ruling 鈥渆stablishes a precedent that threatens private speech that government finds displeasing,鈥� poking holes in the idea that the state was represented in the more than 350 varieties of specialty plates found in Texas.
As you sat there watching these plates speed by, would you really think that the sentiments reflected in these specialty plates are the views of the State of Texas and not those of the owners of the cars? If a car with a plate that says 鈥淩ather Be Golfing鈥� passed by at 8:30 am on a Monday morning, would you think: 鈥淭his is the official policy of the State 鈥� better to golf than to work?鈥�
The decision is handed down at a time of climbing racial tensions around the nation, one day after a Dylann Roof, allegedly shot nine people dead in a historic African-American church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina.听
The case has turned attention to the polarizing and will set a precedent for similar upcoming decisions, such as whether or not to permit plates reading, 鈥淐hoose Life鈥� against abortion,
