Facts
- Texas issues general-license plates and offers specialty license plates with customized designs proposed by individuals and groups.
- Texas law gives the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board final authority to approve or reject proposed specialty plates, including designs that “might be offensive to any member of the public.”
- Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc. (SCV) proposed a specialty plate featuring its logo that included the Confederate battle flag.
- The Board received substantial public objections asserting the Confederate flag is offensive and associated with racial discrimination.
- The Board denied SCV’s application because many members of the public would find the design offensive.
- SCV sued, alleging the denial violated the First Amendment as viewpoint discrimination.
- The district court ruled the specialty plate program involved private speech but upheld the denial; the Fifth Circuit reversed on viewpoint-discrimination grounds.
Issues
- Whether Texas’s specialty license plate designs constitute government speech, such that Texas may select plate content without viewpoint neutrality constraints under the Free Speech Clause.
- If the designs are not government speech, whether denying the Confederate flag design is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in a forum for private speech.
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit in a 5–4 decision (Justice Breyer).
- Texas’s specialty license plate designs are government speech.
- Because the State is the speaker, the Free Speech Clause does not restrict Texas from choosing which messages to include on specialty plates.
- The Board’s denial of SCV’s Confederate-flag plate did not violate the First Amendment.
Legal Principles
- The Free Speech Clause limits government regulation of private speech, not the government’s own speech.
- When the government is speaking, it may determine the content of its message without being subject to forum analysis or a viewpoint-neutrality requirement.
- Specialty plate designs may be treated as government speech when (i) license plates have historically conveyed state messages, (ii) the public closely associates plates with the State, and (iii) the State maintains effective control over plate content through final approval authority.
- The government-speech holding does not authorize compelled private speech; it addresses whether a private party may force the State to convey the private party’s message on a state-issued medium.
Conclusion
The Court held that Texas specialty license plate designs are government speech and that Texas may reject a proposed design featuring the Confederate battle flag without triggering First Amendment viewpoint-neutrality limits applicable to restrictions on private expression.