In March, 2015, the Supreme Court heard arguments about Texas’s ban on confederate flag license
plates and whether the ban is in violation of the First amendment.
2015 marks 150 years since the end of the Civil War, and some have argued that the southern
confederate flag is a symbol of national shame and institutionalized racism.
So, do states have the right to ban the confederate flag?
Well, the question is being posed by a group known as the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Their logo, which includes the confederate flag, has been approved for use on nine other
state license plates.
The group has also attempted to have a former KKK leader memorialized on Mississippi license
plates in 2011.
Like many neo-Confederates, they have said that the flag represents their proud Southern
heritage, and is not representative of racism.
The lawyer for the Sons of Confederate Veterans argues that the government cannot ban the
flag on the grounds that it could be offensive, since doing so would be in violation of the
First Amendment’s free speech clause.
However, Texas disagrees.
Back in 2010, The Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles voted 8-0 to ban the confederate
plates.
In their arguments to the Supreme Court, the Texas DMV says that the ban did not violate
free speech, because the license plates are government owned and considered “government
speech”.
The reason, they say, is that “final approval authority” of the content lies squarely
with the government, not a private party.
So can states ban the confederate flag?
Only when it comes to government owned property.
Private citizens, on the other hand, can paint the confederate flag on nearly every square
inch of their vehicles.
Whether that includes a government issued license plate is for the Supreme Court to
decide.
In the same way that flags and symbols are given meaning, our language is often more
powerful than we think.
Check out this video on Seeker about how language changes even our perception
of the universe.
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