Geoffrey Stone on Texas License Plates and the Confederate Flag

Texas License Plates and the Confederate Flag

The Supreme Court heard arguments today in the case of Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans. The case poses an intriguing First Amendment question.

Like many states, Texas permits drivers to design specialty license plates bearing messages they want to promote. The states that do this do it largely as a way of generating income because they charge for the privilege.

Texas has approved hundreds of different messages on its license plates, including "Choose Life" and "Fight Terrorism," but the Texas Board of Motor Vehicles balked when the Sons of Confederate Veterans sought to include an image of the Confederate flag on the plate that it had designed. The Board denied this proposed license plate under the authority of a provision that authorized it to exclude messages that were likely to offend others. Finding that this was true of the Confederate flag, it rejected the proposal.

The question is whether this was unconstitutional.

Read more at Huffington Post