## Facts

- Mary E. Lewis obtained a Missouri personalized license plate reading “ARYAN-1” after prevailing in earlier state-court litigation under a statute allowing rejection only for plates that were “obscene or profane.”
- Missouri later amended its personalized plate statute to bar plates that are “obscene, profane, inflammatory or contrary to public policy.”
- After an anonymous complaint, the Missouri Department of Revenue (DOR) decided not to reissue Lewis’s plate upon renewal, stating that “ARYAN-1” was “contrary to public policy.”
- Lewis challenged the denial through the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission, which affirmed the Director’s decision.
- Lewis then filed a federal action alleging the “contrary to public policy” standard violated the First Amendment because it was vague, overbroad, and permitted viewpoint discrimination.
- The district court held the DOR’s refusal to renew the plate under the “contrary to public policy” provision unconstitutional, but declined to order reissuance and denied attorney’s fees.

## Issues

1. Whether denying a personalized license plate because it is “contrary to public policy” violates the First Amendment by authorizing overbroad, vague, and viewpoint-discriminatory restrictions on protected expression.
2. Whether Missouri could justify the denial based on forum doctrine or asserted traffic-safety “secondary effects” (e.g., potential road rage).
3. Whether the denial could be upheld on an alternative statutory ground that the plate was “inflammatory.”
4. Whether Lewis was entitled to an injunction requiring reissuance of the plate and attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b).

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit affirmed the finding that the DOR’s reliance on “contrary to public policy” to deny renewal was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
- The court rejected Missouri’s arguments that the personalized plate program permitted suppression of disfavored messages under forum principles or speculative safety concerns.
- The court declined to uphold the denial on the alternative ground that the plate was “inflammatory,” where the agency decision rested on “contrary to public policy” and no constitutionally adequate, viewpoint-neutral standard supported the post hoc rationale.
- The court remanded with instructions to enter an injunction requiring the DOR to reissue the “ARYAN-1” plate and to award reasonable attorney’s fees to Lewis.

## Legal Principles

- When a state opens a personalized license plate program for citizen-selected messages, restrictions on those messages must comply with the First Amendment’s limits on governmental regulation of private expression.
- A statutory standard such as “contrary to public policy,” used to deny a message based on its ideological content, invites impermissible viewpoint discrimination and is unconstitutional as applied in a personalized plate program.
- The government may not suppress protected speech based on speculative hostile audience reactions or asserted “secondary effects” that effectively punish unpopular viewpoints.
- A state may not retroactively defend a speech-based denial on a different statutory label when the actual decision was made under an unconstitutional, viewpoint-based standard.
- A prevailing plaintiff on a significant First Amendment claim is ordinarily entitled to effective prospective relief and reasonable attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b).

## Conclusion

The Eighth Circuit held Missouri could not deny renewal of a personalized plate under a “contrary to public policy” standard that enabled viewpoint-based suppression of protected expression, and it ordered reissuance of the plate and an award of attorney’s fees.


Lewis v. Wilson, 253 F.3d 1077 (8th Cir. 2001)