SAN FRANCISCO — California can’t enforce a ban of vanity license plates it considers “offensive to good taste and decency” because that violates freedom of speech, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Jon Ti-gar ruled Tuesday in a case filed in March against Department of Motor Vehicles Director Steve Gordon on behalf of five Californians who were denied permission to put their messages on personalized license plates.
They included a gay man in Oakland who owns Queer Folks Records and wanted to use the word “QUEER” but was refused because the motor vehicle department said that might be considered insulting; a fan of the rock band Slayer who was notified that “SLAAYRR” would be considered “threatening, aggressive or hostile” and an Army veteran who wanted to note his nickname and love of wolves with “OGWOOLF” but was refused because the department said the OG might be construed as a reference to “original gangster.”
Others were refused because their plates might look or sound like a swear word or might be construed as sexual, according to the judge’s ruling.
Citing U.S. Supreme Court free-speech cases, the judge struck down a state standard that said vanity license plate configurations can’t carry “connotations offensive to good taste and decency.”
The judge said the personalized messages were types of personal expression, not “government speech,” and therefore regulations governing them “must be both viewpoint-neutral and reasonable.”
He noted a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case allowing an Asian American rock band to call itself The Slants in saying that public speech can’t be barred because it may offend some people.
However, Tigar said the motor vehicle department probably could be permitted to deny plates that are, for instance, obscene, profane or contain hate speech because they fall outside of First Amendment protections.
The department said it was reviewing the ruling and declined further comment.