Confederate License Plates are Government Speech, Rules Supreme Court (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Sept. 14, 2015 |
| Report Number |
LS_2015-09-14_01 |
| Report Type |
Legal Sidebar |
| Authors |
Belkin, Paul |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
The Supreme Court has spent much of the last decade broadening the First Amendment's free speech protections by narrowing the exceptions to the First Amendment. But in Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Supreme Court emphasized that government speech continues to be exempt from the First Amendment. When the government speaks, private citizens cannot object that the government's speech violates the citizen's free speech rights. The First Amendment guarantees that 'Congress shall make no law ⦠abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.' But this guarantee has always been read to merely prevent the government from compelling or forbidding private speech: it has never prevented the government itself from speaking. When the government speaks, the Supreme Court does not apply its First Amendment speech doctrines: rather, it approves the government speech as long as it does not violate a separate provision of the Constitution.
