Supreme Court Nixes Texas Confederate-Flag License Plates - The Car Connection
That's made things tough for DMVs, who've been put in the position of policing messages on plates. In making their decisions, DMVs tend to insist that license plates are state-sponsored messages, and what may be appropriate for a bumper sticker may not be the sort of thing that a state wants to put on a product that it manufactures and sells. The issue came to a head this year in a case called Walker, Chairman, Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board, et. al. v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, et. al. Today, the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in that case, and... In 2010, a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans applied for a specialty plate in the state of Texas. The plate's design, which you can see in the image above, included SCV's logo, which contains a square Confederate flag, bordered by the phrase, "Sons of Confederate Veterans 1896". The federal court that first heard the case handed Texas a win. However, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals -- notably, one of the nation's most conservative courts of appeal -- reversed the lower court's decision, ruling that messages on specialty license plates generally constitute free speech and can't be... Source: www.thecarconnection.com
