A win for ‘OGWOOLF.’ Judge bars California DMV from enforcing personalized license plate policy
The California Department of Motor Vehicles is now barred from enforcing its policy of refusing personalized license plates that are “offensive to good taste and decency,” after a federal judge ruled that such a policy violates the First Amendment.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, the libertarian legal organization which facilitated the lawsuit against the DMV’s restrictive policy, declared victory following Tuesday’s ruling.
“This is a great day for our clients and the 250,000 Californians that seek to express their messages on personalized license plates each year,” attorney Wen Fa said in a statement. “Vague bans on offensive speech allow bureaucrats to inject their subjective preferences and undermine the rule of law.”
The DMV in a statement said that the agency is currently reviewing the court’s decision.
The lawsuit saw five clients take on the DMV, each one arguing that the DMV wronged them in denying their license plate request. The requested plates included:
▪ “OGWOOLF,” a reference to the applicant’s nickname while in the military and his love of wolves. The DMV had rejected the plate because it deemed the term “OG” to be “a reference to gang affiliation” that was “offensive to good taste and decency.”
▪ “SLAAYRR,” a reference to the band Slayer. The DMV rejected it for being “threatening, aggressive or hostile.”
▪ “QUEER,” sought by a gay man looking to reclaim the term. The DMV rejected it for being “insulting, degrading or expressing contempt for a specific group or person.”
▪ “DUK N A,” a reference to the applicant’s two Ducati motorcycles. The DMV rejected it for being “profane or obscene.”
▪ “BO11LUX,” sought by an emigrated Englishman whose pub has the motto “real beer, proper food, no bollucks.” The DMV rejected it for having “a discernable sexual connotation or may be construed to be of sexual nature.”
The judge cited the DMV’s inconsistency in enforcing the “offensive to good taste and decency” policy.
The agency, for example, generally disallows license plate configurations containing the numbers “69,” which is a sexual reference, yet it has allowed those numbers in several configurations, including one license plate that reads “69 LUV N,” which the applicant said was a reference to “loving my ’69 GMC.”
“The court therefore finds that even the straightforward ban on the number 69 has been arbitrarily applied,” the judge wrote in his decision.
The judge cited other examples of inconsistency at the DMV, such as allowing “SPAAAZ” but disallowing “RSPAZ,” allowing “FN RIDE” but disallowing “FNN LEXS,” or even disallowing “OGWOOLF” while allowing “OG 69LRK.”
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 5:29 PM with the headline "A win for ‘OGWOOLF.’ Judge bars California DMV from enforcing personalized license plate policy."