Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-144
Timestamp: 2020-02-21 04:13:15
Document Index: 298604073

Matched Legal Cases: ['§502', '§504', '§217', '§217', '§504', '§504', '§504', '§504']

WALKER v. TEXAS DIV., SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS, INC. Syllabus | Supreme Court | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
WALKER v. TEXAS DIV., SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS, INC. Syllabus
(a) When government speaks, it is not barred by the Free Speech Clause from determining the content of what it says. Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 460, 467–468. A government is generally entitled to promote a program, espouse a policy, or take a position. Were the Free Speech Clause interpreted otherwise, “it is not easy to imagine how government would function.” Id., at 468. That is not to say that a government’s ability to express itself is without restriction. Constitutional and statutory provisions outside of the Free Speech Clause may limit government speech, and the Free Speech Clause itself may constrain the government’s speech if, for example, the government seeks to compel private persons to convey the government’s speech. Pp. 5–6.
(2) Forum analysis, which applies to government restrictions on purely private speech occurring on government property, Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 800, is not appropriate when the State is speaking on its own behalf. The parties agree that Texas’s specialty license plates are not a traditional public forum. Further, Texas’s policies and the nature of its license plates indicate that the State did not intend its specialty plates to serve as either a designated public forum—where “government property . . . not traditionally . . . a public forum is intentionally opened up for that purpose,” Summum, supra, at 469—or a limited public forum—where a government “reserv[es a forum] for certain groups or for the discussion of certain topics,” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 829. The State exercises final authority over the messages that may be conveyed by its specialty plates, it takes ownership of each specialty plate design, and it has traditionally used its plates for government speech. These features of Texas specialty plates militate against a determination that Texas has created a public forum. Finally, the plates are not a nonpublic forum, where the “government is . . . a proprietor, managing its internal operations.” International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U. S. 672, 678–679. The fact that private parties take part in the design and propagation of a message does not extinguish the governmental nature of the message or transform the government’s role into that of a mere forum provider. See Summum, supra, at 470–471. Nor does Texas’s requirement that vehicle owners pay annual fees for specialty plates mean that the plates are a forum for private speech. And this case does not resemble other nonpublic forum cases. Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 48–49; Lehman v. Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298; and Cornelius, supra, at 804–806, distinguished. Pp. 13–17.
(c) The determination that Texas’s specialty license plate designs are government speech does not mean that the designs do not also implicate the free speech rights of private persons. The Court has acknowledged that drivers who display a State’s selected license plate designs convey the messages communicated through those designs. See Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 717, n. 15. The Court has also recognized that the First Amendment stringently limits a State’s authority to compel a private party to express a view with which the private party disagrees. Just as Texas cannot require SCV to convey “the State’s ideological message,” id., at 715, SCV cannot force Texas to include a Confederate battle flag on its specialty license plates. Pp. 17–18.
Texas law requires all motor vehicles operating on the State’s roads to display valid license plates. See Tex. Transp. Code Ann. §§502.001 (West Supp. 2014), 504.001 (2013), 504.943 (Supp. 2014). And Texas makes available several kinds of plates. Drivers may choose to display the State’s general-issue license plates. See Texas Dept. of Motor Vehicles, Motor Vehicle Registration Manual 9.1 (Apr. 2015). Each of these plates contains the word “Texas,” a license plate number, a silhouette of the State, a graphic of the Lone Star, and the slogan “The Lone Star State.” Texas Dept. of Motor Vehicles, The Texas Classic FAQs (July 16, 2012), online at http://www.txdmv.gov/motorists/license-plates (all Internet materials as visited June 16, 2015, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). In the alternative, drivers may choose from an assortment of specialty license plates. §504.008(b) (West 2013). Each of these plates contains the word “Texas,” a license plate number, and one of a selection of designs prepared by the State. See ibid.; Specialty License Plates, http://www.txdmv.gov/motorists/license- plates/specialty-license-plates (displaying available Texas specialty plates); Create a Plate: Your Design, http://www.myplates.com/BackgroundOnly (same). Finally, Texas law provides for personalized plates (also known as vanity plates). 43 Tex. Admin. Code §217.45(c)(7) (2015). Pursuant to the personalization program, a vehicle owner may request a particular alphanumeric pattern for use as a plate number, such as “BOB” or “TEXPL8.”
Here we are concerned only with the second category of plates, namely specialty license plates, not with the personalization program. Texas offers vehicle owners a va- riety of specialty plates, generally for an annual fee. See §217.45(b)(2). And Texas selects the designs for specialty plates through three distinct processes.
In 2009, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Texas Division (a nonprofit entity), applied to sponsor a specialty license plate through this last-mentioned process. SCV’s application included a draft plate design. See Appendix, infra. At the bottom of the proposed plate were the words “SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS.” At the side was the organization’s logo, a square Confederate battle flag framed by the words “Sons of Confederate Veterans 1896.” A faint Confederate battle flag appeared in the back- ground on the lower portion of the plate. Additionally, in the middle of the plate was the license plate number, and at the top was the State’s name and silhouette. The Board’s predecessor denied this application.
When government speaks, it is not barred by the Free Speech Clause from determining the content of what it says. Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 460, 467–468 (2009). That freedom in part reflects the fact that it is the democratic electoral process that first and foremost provides a check on government speech. See Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217, 235 (2000). Thus, government statements (and government actions and programs that take the form of speech) do not normally trigger the First Amendment rules designed to protect the marketplace of ideas. See Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Assn., 544 U. S. 550, 559 (2005). Instead, the Free Speech Clause helps produce informed opinions among members of the public, who are then able to influence the choices of a government that, through words and deeds, will reflect its electoral mandate. See Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 369 (1931) (observing that “our constitutional system” seeks to maintain “the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people”).
We have therefore refused “[t]o hold that the Government unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of viewpoint when it chooses to fund a program dedicated to advance certain permissible goals, because the program in advancing those goals necessarily discourages alternative goals.” Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173, 194 (1991). We have pointed out that a contrary holding “would render numerous Government programs constitutionally suspect.” Ibid. Cf. Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U. S. 1, 12–13 (1990) (“If every citizen were to have a right to insist that no one paid by public funds express a view with which he disagreed, debate over issues of great concern to the public would be limited to those in the private sector, and the process of government as we know it radically transformed”). And we have made clear that “the government can speak for itself.” Southworth, supra, at 229.
We based our conclusion on several factors. First, his- tory shows that “[g]overnments have long used monuments to speak to the public.” Id., at 470. Thus, we observed that “[w]hen a government entity arranges for the construction of a monument, it does so because it wishes to convey some thought or instill some feeling in those who see the structure.” Ibid.
Third, we found relevant the fact that the city maintained control over the selection of monuments. We thought it “fair to say that throughout our Nation’s his- tory, the general government practice with respect to do- nated monuments has been one of selective receptivity.” Ibid. And we observed that the city government in Summum “ ‘effectively controlled’ the messages sent by the monuments in the [p]ark by exercising ‘final approval authority’ over their selection.” Id., at 473.
Second, Texas license plate designs “are often closely identified in the public mind with the [State].” Summum, supra, at 472. Each Texas license plate is a government article serving the governmental purposes of vehicle registration and identification. The governmental nature of the plates is clear from their faces: The State places the name “TEXAS” in large letters at the top of every plate. More- over, the State requires Texas vehicle owners to display license plates, and every Texas license plate is issued by the State. See §504.943. Texas also owns the designs on its license plates, including the designs that Texas adopts on the basis of proposals made by private individuals and organizations. See §504.002(3). And Texas dictates the manner in which drivers may dispose of unused plates. See §504.901(c). See also §504.008(g) (requiring that vehicle owners return unused specialty plates to the State).
We have previously used what we have called “forum analysis” to evaluate government restrictions on purely private speech that occurs on government property. Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 800 (1985). But forum analysis is misplaced here. Because the State is speaking on its own behalf, the First Amendment strictures that attend the various types of government-established forums do not apply.
The parties agree that Texas’s specialty license plates are not a “traditional public forum,” such as a street or a park, “which ha[s] immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, ha[s] been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.” Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 45–46 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted). “The Court has rejected the view that traditional public forum status extends beyond its historic confines.” Arkansas Ed. Television Comm’n v. Forbes, 523 U. S. 666, 678 (1998). And state-issued specialty license plates lie far beyond those confines.
It is equally clear that Texas’s specialty plates are neither a “ ‘designated public forum,’ ” which exists where “government property that has not traditionally been regarded as a public forum is intentionally opened up for that purpose,” Summum, supra, at 469, nor a “limited public forum,” which exists where a government has “reserv[ed a forum] for certain groups or for the discussion of certain topics,” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 829 (1995). A government “does not create a public forum by inaction or by permitting limited discourse, but only by intentionally opening a nontraditional forum for public discourse.” Cornelius, 473 U. S., at 802. And in order “to ascertain whether [a government] intended to designate a place not traditionally open to assembly and debate as a public forum,” this Court “has looked to the policy and practice of the government” and to “the nature of the property and its compatibility with expressive activity.” Ibid.
For similar reasons, we conclude that Texas’s specialty license plates are not a “nonpublic for[um],” which exists “[w]here the government is acting as a proprietor, managing its internal operations.” International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U. S. 672, 678–679 (1992). With respect to specialty license plate designs, Texas is not simply managing government property, but instead is engaging in expressive conduct. As we have described, we reach this conclusion based on the historical context, observers’ reasonable interpretation of the messages conveyed by Texas specialty plates, and the effective control that the State exerts over the design selection process. Texas’s specialty license plate designs “are meant to convey and have the effect of conveying a government message.” Summum, 555 U. S., at 472. They “constitute government speech.” Ibid.
Our determination that Texas’s specialty license plate designs are government speech does not mean that the designs do not also implicate the free speech rights of private persons. We have acknowledged that drivers who display a State’s selected license plate designs convey the messages communicated through those designs. See Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 717, n. 15, 715 (1977) (observing that a vehicle “is readily associated with its operator” and that drivers displaying license plates “use their private property as a ‘mobile billboard’ for the State’s ideological message”). And we have recognized that the First Amendment stringently limits a State’s authority to compel a private party to express a view with which the private party disagrees. See id., at 715; Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 573 (1995); West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943). But here, compelled private speech is not at issue. And just as Texas cannot require SCV to convey “the State’s ideological message,” Wooley, supra, at 715, SCV cannot force Texas to include a Confederate battle flag on its specialty license plates.
The Court’s decision passes off private speech as government speech and, in doing so, establishes a precedent that threatens private speech that government finds displeasing. Under our First Amendment cases, the distinction between government speech and private speech is critical. The First Amendment “does not regulate government speech,” and therefore when government speaks, it is free “to select the views that it wants to express.” Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 460, 467–468 (2009). By contrast, “[i]n the realm of private speech or expression, government regulation may not favor one speaker over another.” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 828 (1995).
As you sat there watching these plates speed by, would you really think that the sentiments reflected in these specialty plates are the views of the State of Texas and not those of the owners of the cars? If a car with a plate that says “Rather Be Golfing” passed by at 8:30 am on a Monday morning, would you think: “This is the official policy of the State—better to golf than to work?” If you did your viewing at the start of the college football season and you saw Texas plates with the names of the University of Texas’s out-of-state competitors in upcoming games—Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, the University of Okla- homa, Kansas State, Iowa State—would you assume that the State of Texas was officially (and perhaps treasonously) rooting for the Longhorns’ opponents? And when a car zipped by with a plate that reads “NASCAR – 24 Jeff Gordon,” would you think that Gordon (born in California, raised in Indiana, resides in North Carolina)1 is the official favorite of the State government?
The Court says that all of these messages are government speech. It is essential that government be able to express its own viewpoint, the Court reminds us, because otherwise, how would it promote its programs, like recycling and vaccinations? Ante, at 5–6. So when Texas issues a “Rather Be Golfing” plate, but not a “Rather Be Playing Tennis” or “Rather Be Bowling” plate, it is furthering a state policy to promote golf but not tennis or bowling. And when Texas allows motorists to obtain a Notre Dame license plate but not a University of South- ern California plate, it is taking sides in that long-time rivalry.
This capacious understanding of government speech takes a large and painful bite out of the First Amendment. Specialty plates may seem innocuous. They make motorists happy, and they put money in a State’s coffers. But the precedent this case sets is dangerous. While all license plates unquestionably contain some government speech (e.g., the name of the State and the numbers and/or letters identifying the vehicle), the State of Texas has converted the remaining space on its specialty plates into little mobile billboards on which motorists can display their own messages. And what Texas did here was to reject one of the messages that members of a private group wanted to post on some of these little billboards be- cause the State thought that many of its citizens would find the message offensive. That is blatant viewpoint discrimination.
Once the idea of specialty plates took hold, the number of varieties quickly multiplied, and today, we are told, Texas motorists can choose from more than 350 messages, including many designs proposed by nonprofit groups or by individuals and for-profit businesses through the State’s third-party vendor. Brief for Respondents at 2; see also Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, online at http:// www.txdmv.gov / motorists / license-plates / specialty - license-plates (all Internet materials as visited June 12, 2015, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file); http:// www.myplates.com.
Drivers can select plates advertising organizations and causes like 4–H, the Boy Scouts, the American Legion, Be a Blood Donor, the Girl Scouts, Insure Texas Kids, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Marine Mammal Recovery, Save Texas Ocelots, Share the Road, Texas Reads, Texas Realtors (“I am a Texas Realtor”), the Texas State Rifle Association (“WWW.TSRA.COM”), the Texas Trophy Hunters Association, the World Wildlife Fund, the YMCA, and Young Lawyers.2
At the same meeting, the Board approved a Buffalo Soldiers plate design by a 5-to-3 vote. Proceeds from fees paid by motorists who select that plate benefit the Buffalo Soldier National Museum in Houston, which is “dedicated primarily to preserving the legacy and honor of the African American soldier.” Buffalo Soldier National Museum, online at http://www.buffalosoldiermuseum.com. “Buffalo Soldiers” is a nickname that was originally given to black soldiers in the Army’s 10th Cavalry Regiment, which was formed after the Civil War, and the name was later used to describe other black soldiers. W. Leckie & S. Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Black Cavalry in the West 21, 26–27 (2003). The original Buffalo Soldiers fought with distinction in the Indian Wars, but the “Buf- falo Soldiers” plate was opposed by some Native Americans. One leader commented that he felt “ ‘the same way about the Buffalo Soldiers’ ” as African-Americans felt about the Confederate flag. Scharrer, Specialty License Plates can Bring in Revenue, But Some Stir Up Controversy, Hous- ton Chronicle, Nov. 26, 2011, P.B2. “ ‘When we see the U. S. Cavalry uniform,’ ” he explained, “ ‘we are forced to relive an American holocaust.’ ” Ibid.
Relying almost entirely on one precedent—Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 460—the Court holds that messages that private groups succeed in placing on Texas license plates are government messages. The Court badly misunderstands Summum.
I begin with history. As we said in Summum, governments have used monuments since time immemorial to express important government messages, and there is no history of governments giving equal space to those wishing to express dissenting views. In 1775, when a large gilded equestrian statue of King George III dominated Bowling Green, a small park in lower Manhattan,3 the colonial governor surely would not have permitted the construction on that land of a monument to the fallen at Lexington and Concord. When the United States accepted the Third French Republic’s gift of the Statue of Liberty in 1877, see id., at 477, Congress, it seems safe to say, would not have welcomed a gift of a Statue of Authoritarianism if one had been offered by another country. Nor is it likely that the National Park Service today would be receptive if private groups, pointing to the Lincoln Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, sought permission to put up monuments to Jefferson Davis, Orval Faubus, or the North Vietnamese Army. Governments have always used public monuments to express a government message, and members of the public understand this.
Up to this point, the words on the Texas plates can be considered government speech. The messages were created by the State, and they plausibly promoted state programs.4 But when, at some point within the last 20 years or so, the State began to allow private entities to secure plates conveying their own messages, Texas crossed the line.
In an attempt to gather historical support for its position, the Court relies on plates with the mottos or symbols of other States. As the Court notes, some of these were issued well before “The Lone Star State” made its debut in Texas in 1991. Id., at 82. But this history is irrelevant for present purposes. Like the 1991 Texas plate, these out-of-state plates were created by the States that issued them, and motorists generally had no choice but to accept them. For example, the State of New Hampshire made it a crime to cover up the words “Live Free or Die” on its plates. See Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705 (1977).
Texas’s only other (also extrarecord) evidence of selectivity concerns a proposed plate that was thought to create a threat to the fair enforcement of the State’s motor vehicle laws. Reply Brief 9–10 (citing publicly avail- able Transcript of Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board Meeting, Aug. 9, 2012, p. 112, online at http:// www. txdmv. gov / reports - and - data / doc _ download / 450 – 2012 –tran-aug9). This proposed plate was a Texas DPS Troopers Foundation (Troopers) plate, proposed in 2012. The Board considered that proposed plate at an August 2012 meeting, at which it approved six other plate designs without discussion, but it rejected the Troopers plate in a deadlocked vote due to apparent concern that the plate could give the impression that those displaying it would receive favored treatment from state troopers. Id., at 109–112. The constitutionality of this Board action does not necessarily turn on whether approval of this plate would have made the message government speech. If, as I believe, the Texas specialty plate program created a limited public forum, private speech may be excluded if it is inconsistent with the purpose of the forum. Rosenberger, 515 U. S., at 829.
In sum, the Texas specialty plate program has none of the factors that were critical in Summum, and the Texas program exhibits a very important characteristic that was missing in that case: Individuals who want to display a Texas specialty plate, instead of the standard plate, must pay an increased annual registration fee. See http://www.dmv.org/tx-texas/license-plates.php. How many groups or individuals would clamor to pay $8,000 (the cost of the deposit required to create a new plate) in order to broadcast the government’s message as opposed to their own? And if Texas really wants to speak out in support of, say, Iowa State University (but not the University of Iowa) or “Young Lawyers” (but not old ones), why must it be paid to say things that it really wants to say? The fees Texas collects pay for much more than merely the administration of the program.
What Texas has done by selling space on its license plates is to create what we have called a limited public forum. It has allowed state property (i.e., motor vehicle license plates) to be used by private speakers according to rules that the State prescribes. Cf. Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U. S. 98, 106–107 (2001). Under the First Amendment, however, those rules cannot discriminate on the basis of viewpoint. See Rosenberger, 515 U. S., at 829 (quoting Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 806 (1985)). But that is exactly what Texas did here. The Board rejected Texas SCV’s design, “specifically the confederate flag portion of the design, because public comments have shown that many members of the general public find the design offensive, and because such comments are reason- able.” App. 64. These statements indisputably demonstrate that the Board denied Texas SCV’s design because of its viewpoint.
The Board’s decision cannot be saved by its suggestion that the plate, if allowed, “could distract or disturb some drivers to the point of being unreasonably dangerous.” App. 65. This rationale cannot withstand strict scrutiny. Other States allow specialty plates with the Confederate Battle Flag,5 and Texas has not pointed to evidence that these plates have led to incidents of road rage or accidents. Texas does not ban bumper stickers bearing the image of the Confederate battle flag. Nor does it ban any of the many other bumper stickers that convey political messages and other messages that are capable of exciting the ire of those who loathe the ideas they express. Cf. Good News Club, supra, at 111–112.