Are vanity license plates protected speech? One woman is appealing hers to Supreme Court. [View all]

Source: USA Today

Aug. 31,. 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET


WASHINGTON – Texas wouldn’t let a critic of President Donald Trump have a custom license plate reading “JAIL 45.” College football fans in Michigan can’t request a vanity plate that says “OSUSUCKS.” Arizona allowed the religious message “JESUSNM.” But Vermont blocked “JN36TN”, a reference to the Bible verse John 3:16.

States’ rules for what is and isn’t allowed on personalized plates are often unclear and can amount to a “dizzying array of censorship,” lawyers for a Tennessee woman have told the Supreme Court in a bid for the justices to get involved. Leah Gilliam wants the court to find that she is expressing her own views through a vanity plate, not the government’s, a decision that would limit states’ ability to control that message.

The justices came to the opposite conclusion in 2015 when upholding restrictions on the design of specialty license plates, which support a cause or organization. States that sell specialty plates can prohibit images such as the Confederate flag, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision. "States have long used license plates in this country to convey government messages," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the majority.

But Gilliam’s attorneys argue judges have disagreed about whether the same is true for the combination of letters and numbers on personalized license plates.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/08/31/supreme-court-vanity-license-plates-appeal/85834301007/