Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc. (576 U.S. 200)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 18, 2015 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 576 U.S. 200 · 135 S. Ct. 2239
- Docket
- No. 14-144
- Argued
- March 23, 2015
- Decided
- June 18, 2015
- Term
- October Term 2014
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Justice Thomas, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer (wrote), Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan
- Dissenting
- Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, Justice Alito (wrote)
Oral argument transcript and advocates · Opinion on Justia
Opinion excerpt
Justice BREYERdelivered the opinion of the Court. Texas offers automobile owners a choice between ordinary and specialty license plates. Those who want the State to issue a particular specialty plate may propose a plate design, comprising a slogan, a graphic, or (most commonly) both. If the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board approves the design, the State will make it available for display on vehicles registered in Texas. In this case, the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans proposed a specialty license plate design featuring a Confederate battle flag. The Board rejected the proposal. We must decide whether that rejection violated the Constitution's free speech guarantees. See Amdts. 1, 14. We conclude that it did not. I A 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),…
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