Edgy Vanity Plates Test Limits of Free Speech
Archive link: https://archive.ph/fzQPR
Courts are splintered over whether and how states can censor the messages the plates convey.
The latest decision landed Friday. It involved Curtis Whateley, who paid Virginia $10 in 2023 for a personalized license plate. He had seven characters to work with, and he sought to convey a statement “expressing my opinion on the current state of policing in this country,” as he would later put it in a lawsuit.
He settled on FTP & ATF. No one disputes what those letters stand for. “TP” is the police. “ATF” is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “F” is what you think it is.
The state issued the plate, and he used it for about a year, until authorities received an anonymous complaint that caused them to cancel it. Representing himself, Whateley sued, saying the cancellation violated the First Amendment.
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“On Friday, Judge Pamela Harris, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sided with Whateley and the A.C.L.U., ruling vanity plates are private speech subject to First Amendment protections.
But that is only the first step. Even private speech is sometimes subject to government regulation.
The appeals court returned the case to Judge Moon to consider whether Virginia’s cancellation of Whateley’s plate can survive First Amendment scrutiny, which often turns on whether the challenged policy discriminates based on the speaker’s viewpoint.
Virginia, for its part, announced on Wednesday night that it would seek Supreme Court review.
“The commonwealth has a responsibility to ensure that state-issued license plates are not profane and do not promote dangerous hate speech or incite harm,” said RaeAnn Pickett, a spokeswoman for Jay Jones, the state’s attorney general.”