ACLU of Virginia joins suit against the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles for suppressing constitutionally protected speech

RICHMOND, Va. – The ACLU of Virginia filed the opening brief yesterday in its lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on behalf of a Virginian whose personalized license plate – or vanity plate – was revoked by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

“More Virginians have personalized their license plates than residents of any other state,” said ACLU-VA Legal Director Eden Heilman. “That makes it especially crucial that the Court of Appeals reach the conclusion that other courts have reached time and again: vanity plates constitute private speech, protected by the First Amendment.”

Out of the 9.3 million personalized plates on America’s roads in 2007, roughly one in 10 were in Virginia, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicles. At the time, approximately 16 percent of all license plates issued by Virginia’s DMV were vanity plates.

In 2023, Curtis M. Whateley applied for and was issued the vanity plate “FTP&ATF” by the Virginia DMV, even getting the license plate re-issued after he realized the “&” symbol was missing. For about a year, the plate was displayed on his car with no issue.

But in May 2024, the DMV recalled the license plate, claiming the message could be perceived as profane, obscene, or vulgar, and used to condone violence. In response to Mr. Whateley’s lawsuit challenging this determination, the DMV argued that vanity plates are not private speech, but government speech, and therefore excluded from First Amendment protections. In May 2025, a judge in the Western District of Virginia agreed, citing a 2015 Supreme Court case that ruled Texas’s “specialty plates” – plates that have different designs from the state’s default plate – are government speech.

But vanity plates and specialty plates are not the same: courts throughout the country have determined the personalized messages on vanity plates are in fact private speech. As recently as 2019, the ACLU of Kentucky won a similar case on behalf of a man whose “IM GOD” vanity plate was found to be constitutionally protected speech, and last year, the ACLU of Delaware won a case on behalf of a cancer survivor who sought to use the license plate “FCANCER.”

“Vanity plates are a way for people to express constitutionally-protected personal views – including political ones,” said ACLU-VA Senior Supervising Attorney Matt Callahan. “Government officials should not be allowed to censor Virginians simply because they disagree with them.”

Today’s filing is the opening brief in Whateley’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The Commissioner of the Virginia DMV is required to file his opposition by October 2.