American Civil Liberties Union v. Anthony Tata

Certiorari granted by Supreme Court, June 29, 2015
Vacated and Remanded by Supreme Court, June 29, 2015

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-1030

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NORTH CAROLINA; DEAN
DEBNAM; CHRISTOPHER HEANEY; SUSAN HOLLIDAY, CNM, MSN; MARIA
MAGHER,

Plaintiffs - Appellees,

v.

ANTHONY J. TATA, in his official capacity as Secretary of
the North Carolina Department of Transportation; JAMES L.
FORTE, in his official capacity as Commissioner of the North
Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles,

Defendants – Appellants,

and

MICHAEL GILCHRIST, in his official capacity as Colonel of
the North Carolina State Highway Patrol,

Defendant.

------------------------

NATIONAL LEGAL FOUNDATION,

Amicus Supporting Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Fox, Senior
District Judge. (5:11-cv-00470-F)

Argued: October 30, 2013 Decided: February 11, 2014
Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, WYNN, Circuit Judge, and George L.
RUSSELL, III, United States District Judge for the District of
Maryland, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wynn wrote the opinion, in
which Chief Judge Traxler and Judge Russell joined.

ARGUED: Kathryne Elizabeth Hathcock, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT
OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellants.
Christopher Anderson Brook, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF
NORTH CAROLINA LEGAL FOUNDATION, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellees. ON BRIEF: Roy Cooper, North Carolina Attorney
General, Neil Dalton, Special Deputy Attorney General, NORTH
CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellants. Steven W. Fitschen, THE NATIONAL LEGAL FOUNDATION,
Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Amicus Supporting Appellants.

2
WYNN, Circuit Judge:

The First Amendment prohibits the making of any law

“abridging the freedom of speech . . . .” U.S. Const. amend. I.

“Premised on mistrust of governmental power, the First Amendment

stands against attempts to disfavor certain subjects or

viewpoints.” Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 558 U.S.

310, 340 (2010). Chief amongst the evils the First Amendment

prohibits are government “restrictions distinguishing among

different speakers, allowing speech by some but not others.”

Id.

In this case, North Carolina seeks to do just that:

privilege speech on one side of a hotly debated issue—

reproductive choice—while silencing opposing voices.

Specifically, though North Carolina invites citizens to “[m]ake

a statement,” 1 and “promote themselves and/or their causes” 2 with

specialty license plates, it limits this invitation to only

those citizens who agree with North Carolina’s “Choose Life”

stance. North Carolina contends that it may so discriminate

because specialty plate messages constitute pure government

speech free from First Amendment viewpoint-neutrality

constraints. With this, we cannot agree.

1
http://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/vehicle/plates/.
2
http://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/online/.

3
 The Supreme Court and this Court have recognized individual

speech interests in license plate messages. And in this case,

too, the specialty plate speech at issue implicates private

speech rights, and thus First Amendment protections apply.

Because issuing a “Choose Life” specialty license plate while

refusing to issue a pro-choice specialty plate constitutes

blatant viewpoint discrimination squarely at odds with the First

Amendment, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary

judgment and a permanent injunction in Plaintiffs’ favor.

I.

In June 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly passed,

and the North Carolina Governor signed into law, House Bill 289

(“HB 289”). The resulting law, “An Act to Authorize the

Division of Motor Vehicles to Issue Various Special Registration

Plates,” authorizes the North Carolina Division of Motor

Vehicles (“NC DMV”) to issue, among other specialty license

plates, a “Choose Life” plate. 2011 N.C. Sess. Laws 392.

By contrast, this law authorizes no pro-choice specialty

license plate. Id. In fact, plates bearing slogans such as

“Respect Choice” were suggested but repeatedly rejected by the

North Carolina General Assembly. J.A. 61-62.

A “Choose Life” plate, like many other specialty license

plates, costs a vehicle owner an additional $25 per year. N.C.

4
Gen. Stat. § 20-79.7(a1). Of the $25, $15 go to the Carolina

Pregnancy Care Fellowship, a private organization that supports

crisis pregnancy centers in North Carolina. 3 N.C. Gen. Stat. §§

20-79.7(b), 20-81.12(b84). The remaining $10 go to the North

Carolina Highway Fund, as is the case with other specialty

plates. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-79.7(b). Further, the funds

collected from “Choose Life” plates are expressly prohibited

from “be[ing] distributed to any agency, organization, business,

or other entity that provides, promotes, counsels, or refers for

abortion . . . .” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-81.12(b84).

To develop a specialty license plate, NC DMV must receive

three hundred applications from individuals interested in that

plate. Id. Once the NC DMV issues the plate, any interested

vehicle owner registered in North Carolina may purchase it.

Over two hundred specialty plates are available, and North

Carolina invites vehicle owners to “find the plate that fits

you” and “[m]ake a statement with a specialized or personalized

license plate.” http://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/vehicle/plates/.

According to North Carolina, its specialty plate program “allows

citizens with common interests to promote themselves and/or

their causes.” http://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/online/.

3
The Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship also serves as the
official state contact for Choose Life, Inc., a national
organization devoted to getting “Choose Life” license plates on
the road in all fifty states.

5
 Because North Carolina refused to allow a specialized plate

to promote their cause, North Carolina vehicle owners who wanted

a pro-choice specialty plate, along with the ACLU, brought this

lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern

District of North Carolina. They sued the North Carolina

Department of Transportation (“NC DOT”) and the NC DMV

(collectively called “North Carolina”) for First and Fourteenth

Amendment violations.

In December 2011, the district court granted a preliminary

injunction blocking North Carolina from issuing the “Choose

Life” plate. Am. Civil Liberties Union of N.C. v. Conti, 835 F.

Supp. 2d 51 (E.D.N.C. 2011). One year later, in December 2012,

the district court granted summary judgment and permanently

enjoined the “Choose Life” plate. Am. Civil Liberties Union of

N.C. v. Conti, 912 F. Supp. 2d 363 (E.D.N.C. 2012). The

district court held, among other things, that “sufficient

private speech interests are implicated by the specialty license

plates to preclude a finding of purely government speech[,]” and

that “the State’s offering of a Choose Life license plate in the

absence of a pro-choice plate constitutes viewpoint

discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.” Id. at

375. North Carolina appealed, and our review is de novo.

Planned Parenthood of S.C. Inc. v. Rose, 361 F.3d 786, 789 (4th

Cir. 2004).

6
 II.

At the outset, we note that North Carolina does not deny

that it engaged in viewpoint discrimination by approving the

“Choose Life” plate while refusing to allow a pro-choice plate.

Instead, North Carolina contends that it was free to

discriminate based on viewpoint because the license plate speech

at issue was solely its own. And under the government speech

doctrine, when the government speaks for itself, it can say what

it wishes. Plaintiffs disagree, arguing that the license plate

speech at issue implicates private speech and all its attendant

First Amendment protections, including the prohibition on

viewpoint discrimination. Determining whether the “Choose Life”

specialty plate embodies pure government speech or something

else is therefore at the heart of this case.

A.

“Premised on mistrust of governmental power,” Citizens

United, 558 U.S. at 340, the First Amendment bars the government

from abridging freedom of private speech. U.S. Const. amend. I;

see also, Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925) (incorporating

the freedom of speech against the states). “It is axiomatic

that the government may not regulate speech based on its

substantive content or the message it conveys. Other principles

follow from this precept. In the realm of private speech or

expression, government regulation may not favor one speaker over

7
another. Discrimination against speech because of its message

is presumed to be unconstitutional.” Rosenberger v. Rector &

Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 828 (1995) (citations

omitted).

“[T]he violation of the First Amendment is all the more

blatant” when the government targets not simply subject matter,

but particular viewpoints speakers take on a subject. Id. at

829. Indeed, the Supreme Court has called viewpoint

discrimination “an egregious form of content discrimination” and

has held that “[t]he government must abstain from regulating

speech when the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or

perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the

restriction.” Id. at 829.

By contrast, if the government engages in its own

expressive conduct, then the Free Speech Clause and its

viewpoint neutrality requirements have “no application.”

Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, 467 (2009).

Indeed, under the “relatively new, and correspondingly

imprecise” government speech doctrine, Johanns v. Livestock

Mktg. Ass’n, 544 U.S. 550, 574 (2005) (Souter, J., dissenting),

“[a] government entity has the right to speak for itself. It is

entitled to say what it wishes, and to select the views that it

wants to express.” (quotation marks, citations, and alterations

omitted).

8
 Although the Supreme Court has not yet recognized that

speech may be not purely government or private but instead

implicate both, this Court has. In Sons of Confederate

Veterans, Inc. ex rel. Griffin v. Commissioner of the Virginia

Department of Motor Vehicles (“SCV I”), this Court held that

Virginia’s barring the Sons of Confederate Veterans from

obtaining a specialty license plate with a confederate flag logo

constituted unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. 288 F.3d

610 (4th Cir. 2002). While the panel opinion deemed the speech

at issue private only, Judge Luttig, in a separate opinion

regarding the denial of rehearing en banc, presciently

recognized that “speech in fact can be, at once, that of a

private individual and the government.” Sons of Confederate

Veterans, Inc. v. Comm’r of Va. Dep’t of Motor Vehicles (“SCV

II”), 305 F.3d 241, 245 (4th Cir. 2002) (Luttig, J.). He noted

that specialty plates were perhaps the “quintessential example

of speech that is both private and governmental because the

forum and the message are essentially inseparable, the

consequence being that it is difficult if not impossible to

separate sufficiently what is indisputably the speech act by the

private speaker from what is equally indisputably the speech act

by the government.” Id.

9
 Two years later, in Rose, this Court embraced the notion of

mixed speech. 361 F.3d at 794. 4 In Rose, a case strikingly

similar to this one, South Carolina had authorized the issuance

of a “Choose Life” specialty license plate but no plate bearing

a pro-choice message. Id. at 787–88. The plaintiffs in Rose,

as here, alleged that in doing so, the state engaged in

unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Id. Deeming the

specialty plate speech at issue mixed speech implicating private

speech rights, we agreed. Id. We held that the speech at issue

there “appears to be neither purely government speech nor purely

private speech, but a mixture of the two.” Id. at 794. We

applied a forum analysis, which the Supreme Court has instructed

courts to use when private speech occurs on government property,

noted that the government may not viewpoint-discriminate in any

forum, and held that South Carolina’s allowing a pro-life plate

but no pro-choice plate constituted viewpoint discrimination in

violation of the First Amendment. Id. at 795-99.

4
While each member of the Rose panel wrote a separate
concurring opinion, Judge Michael authored the only opinion
laying out the Court’s analytical framework, and the other panel
members, Judge Luttig and Judge Gregory, essentially embraced
it. See, e.g., Rose, 361 F.3d at 800 (Luttig, J.) (“Needless to
say, I am pleased that the court adopts today the view that
speech can indeed be hybrid in character.”); Rose, 361 F.3d at
801 (Gregory, J.) (“[B]ecause I believe the judgment reached
today applies the factors set forth in Sons of Confederate
Veterans in a manner that begins to recognize the government
speech interests in the vanity license plate forum, I concur in
the judgment.”).

10
 B.

To determine whether speech is that of the government,

private parties, or both, this Court looks to “instructive”

factors laid out in SCV I:

(1) “the central purpose of the program in which the
speech in question occurs;”

(2) “the degree of editorial control exercised by the
government or private entities over the content of the
speech;”

(3) “the identity of the literal speaker;” and

(4) “whether the government or the private entity
bears the ultimate responsibility for the content of
the speech[.]”

288 F.3d at 618 (quotation marks omitted).

North Carolina argues that this Court abandoned the SCV

factors with Page v. Lexington County School District One, 531

F.3d 275 (4th Cir. 2008). According to North Carolina, in Page

we lopped off several of the SCV factors in favor of an

exclusive focus on control of the message in question to

determine whose message it is. We disagree.

First, we note that “a panel of this court cannot over-

rule, explicitly or implicitly, the precedent set by a prior

panel of this court. Only the Supreme Court or this court

sitting en banc can do that.” United States v. Brooks, 524 F.3d

549, 559 n.17 (4th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted). Page,

11
which is neither a Supreme Court nor an en banc decision, thus

did not supplant SCV I.

Second, Page does not suggest any attempt to overthrow the

SCV factors in favor of a single-factor control test. Instead,

in Page, a case about a school district’s speech, we cited to,

and considered, several factors—specifically, who disseminates

the speech, as well as who “establishes” and “controls” the

speech. Page, 531 F.3d at 281. Our flexible approach in Page

is not surprising, given our express acknowledgment in SCV I

itself that the four factors identified there are “instructive”

but neither “exhaustive” nor always uniformly applicable. SCV

I, 288 F.3d at 619. Therefore even Page does not support our

having embraced a single-factor approach to determining who is

speaking.

Further, in opinions postdating Page, we explicitly

employed the SCV factors to identify the pertinent speaker.

See, e.g., Turner v. City Council of City of Fredericksburg,

Va., 534 F.3d 352, 354 (4th Cir. 2008) (noting that the “Fourth

Circuit has adopted a four-factor test for determining when

speech can be attributed to the government,” listing the SCV

factors, and “[a]pplying these factors, . . . [to] conclude that

the legislative prayer at issue . . . is governmental speech”).

Clearly, then, this Circuit has not recognized Page as having

displaced SCV I.

12
 North Carolina nonetheless presses that the Supreme Court

implicitly overruled our SCV test with Johanns, 544 U.S. 550,

and Summum, 555 U.S. 460. Specifically, North Carolina contends

that those cases instruct us to consider only “the level of

control the government exercises over the speech, not on who a

reasonable observer views as the literal speaker.” Appellants’

Br. at 7. Again, we disagree with North Carolina’s argument and

thus decline its invitation to “follow the ‘control’ test for

government speech set forth in Johanns and affirmed in Summum.”

Id. at 14.

Looking first at Johanns, we agree with the Ninth Circuit

that the case is factually distinguishable from specialty

license plate cases. “Johanns involved a government-compelled

subsidy of government speech. . . . In Johanns, the individual

harm was being forced to give the government money to pay for

someone else’s message.” Ariz. Life Coal. Inc. v. Stanton, 515

F.3d 956, 964 (9th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted). In

specialty license plate cases, by contrast, “private individuals

choose to pay the price for obtaining a particular specialty

license plate. The First Amendment harm is being denied the

opportunity to speak on the same terms as other private citizens

within a government sponsored forum.” Id. (quotation marks

omitted).

13
 Further, the Supreme Court itself limited its holding to

compelled subsidies, expressly declining to address as not on

point even compelled speech arguments. Johanns, 544 U.S. at

564-65. 5 While doing so, the Supreme Court recognized the

continued validity of Wooley v. Maynard, in which the Court held

that vehicle owners had a First Amendment right to cover the

“Live Free or Die” state motto on their New Hampshire license

plates. Johanns, 544 U.S. at 565 n.8 (citing and distinguishing

Wooley, 430 U.S. 705 (1977)). The Supreme Court also recognized

the continued validity of West Virginia State Board of Education

v. Barnette, in which the Court held a law requiring all

schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and salute the

American flag unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Johanns, 544 U.S. at 565 n.8 (citing and distinguishing

Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)). Yet if North Carolina were

correct in its assertion that government control of the message

is all that matters, both Wooley and Barnette would have been

5
We recognize that, upon closer consideration, government
subsidies may look more like government regulation than courts
have generally been willing to admit. See, e.g., Joseph
Blocher, Viewpoint Neutrality and Government Speech, 52 B.C. L.
Rev. 695, 721 (2011) (noting, among other things, that funding
one group effectively singles out disfavored, unsubsidized
groups and thus looks like viewpoint-based regulation). We do
not resolve that quandary here. We simply conclude that Johanns
did not overrule the four-factor framework this Court
established in SCV I and has applied repeatedly since to
determine who is speaking in cases like this one.

14
wrongly decided—and they surely would not have been cited in

Johanns as good compelled speech law.

Indeed, Summum underscores that the Supreme Court did not

espouse a myopic “control test” in Johanns. Specifically, in

Summum, the Supreme Court held that placement of permanent

monuments, including those designed and donated by private

entities, in a city park constitutes government speech. 555

U.S. at 481. As in Johanns, the Supreme Court considered the

“control” factor, observing that the city “‘effectively

controlled’ the messages sent by the monuments in the [p]ark by

exercising ‘final approval authority’ over their selection.”

Summum, 555 U.S. at 473 (quoting Johanns, 544 U.S. at 560–61).

Importantly, however, the Supreme Court also focused on the

perceived identity of the speaker. The Court noted that

monuments installed on property are “routinely—and reasonably—

interpret[ed] as conveying some message on the property owner’s

behalf.” Id. at 471. Accordingly, the Court concluded that

“there is little chance that observers will fail to appreciate

the identity of the speaker” as the property owner. Id.

Additionally, context mattered in Summum. The Supreme

Court focused on the fact that “public parks can accommodate

only a limited number of permanent monuments.” Id. at 478. As

the Court noted, “[s]peakers, no matter how long-winded,

eventually come to the end of their remarks[,]” while “monuments

15
. . . endure.” Id. at 479. We cannot square the Supreme

Court’s multi-faceted, context-specific reasoning in Summum with

North Carolina’s blanket contention that all that matters is who

controls the message. 6

The third Supreme Court case upon which North Carolina

seeks to rely—Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual

Group of Boston—has absolutely no bearing on this one. 515 U.S.

557 (1995). North Carolina cites to Hurley for the proposition

that “[u]nder the government speech doctrine, North Carolina can

claim the ‘fundamental rule of protection under the First

Amendment, that a speaker has the autonomy to choose the content

of his own message.’” Appellants’ Br. at 4 (quoting Hurley, 515

U.S. at 573). But Hurley had nothing to do with the government

speech doctrine—which, by its very nature, does not implicate

the First Amendment. See, e.g., Summum, 555 U.S. at 467-68

(noting that if the government engages in its “own expressive

conduct, then the Free Speech Clause has no application” because

“it does not regulate government speech”). Instead, that case

centered on private parties’ free speech rights, holding that

requiring private parade organizers to include amongst their

6
The Supreme Court also noted “the legitimate concern that
the government speech doctrine not be used as a subterfuge for
favoring certain private speakers over others based on
viewpoint.” Summum, 555 U.S. at 473. We do not take this
concern lightly.

16
marchers a group whose message they opposed violated the

organizers’ First Amendment rights. Hurley, 515 U.S. at 559.

If anything, Hurley hurts North Carolina’s cause, not least due

to its recognition that government regulation may not “interfere

with speech for no better reason than promoting an approved

message or discouraging a disfavored one, however enlightened

either purpose may strike the government.” Id. at 579.

In sum, for over a decade, this Circuit has found the SCV

factors instructive in determining whether speech is that of the

government, private parties, or both. Sometimes considering

those factors has led us to conclude that speech implicated both

government and private expression. See, e.g., WV Ass’n of Club

Owners & Fraternal Servs., Inc. v. Musgrave, 553 F.3d 292, 299-

300 (4th Cir. 2009); Rose, 361 F.3d at 794. In other cases,

considering the SCV factors led to the conclusion that the

speech at issue was purely government (see, e.g., Turner, 534

F.3d at 354) or purely private (see SCV I, 288 F.3d at 621).

But regardless of our conclusion in any particular case, we have

repeatedly looked to the SCV factors to help us identify the

pertinent speaker. And neither an en banc decision from this

Court, nor one from the Supreme Court, has implicitly, much less

explicitly, suggested that to do so was to err.

17
 C.

Having concluded that the “instructive” factors we

identified in SCV remain appropriate tools for evaluating

whether speech is government, private, or both, we turn to

applying those factors here.

1. The Central Purpose Of The Program In Which The Speech
In Question Occurs

The first SCV factor, the central purpose of the program in

which the speech in question occurs, may—or may not—be readily

apparent. SCV I, 288 F.3d at 619. To divine the central

purpose, this Court has considered, e.g., revenue generation and

allocation and legislative intent. See, e.g., id.; Rose, 361

F.3d at 793.

Here, we must conclude that the purpose of the specialty

license plate program, including the “Choose Life” plate, is to

allow North Carolina drivers to express their affinity for

various special interests, as well as to raise revenue for the

state. 7 First, the legislative history of HB 289 indicates that

7
In his Rose opinion, Judge Michael focused exclusively on
the “Choose Life” specialty plate and its authorizing
legislation, rather than on South Carolina’s specialty plate
program more broadly. That narrow focus does not square with
SCV I’s instruction to look to the central purpose “of the
program in which the speech in question occurs.” SCV I, 288
F.3d at 618 (emphasis added). See also Am. Civil Liberties
Union of Tenn. v. Bredesen, 441 F.3d 370, 389-90 (6th Cir. 2006)
(Martin, J., dissenting) (“If we think of each individual
license plate in a vacuum, each one can be reasonably
(Continued)
18
the specialty license plate program was intended to be a forum

for private expression of interests. See, e.g., Remark of

Representative Tim Moore to the North Carolina House Fin. Comm.

(June 2, 2011), J.A. 19 ¶ 33 (stating that specialty license

plates constitute “voluntary speech that people are making by

purchasing the license plate”). Fittingly, then, North Carolina

expressly invites its vehicle owners to “[m]ake a statement with

a specialized or personalized license plate” and to “find the

plate that fits you.” http://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/vehicle/plates/.

It describes its specialty plate program as “allow[ing] citizens

with common interests to promote themselves and/or their

causes.” http://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/online/. By contrast,

nothing before us suggests that North Carolina has ever

communicated to the public that the specialty plate program is

characterized as a government message. But, in order to
properly characterize the specialty license plate program for
First Amendment purposes, we cannot view each license plate in
isolation. I suggest that when opening one’s eyes to the
license plate program as a whole, it is evident that the
government has created a program to encourage a diversity of
views and messages from private speakers.”). Even were we to
focus on the authorizing legislation alone, as did Judge
Michael, the North Carolina law at issue here authorized a wide
array of specialty plates, on topics ranging from wild turkeys
to stock car racing. We therefore could not conclude here that
the purpose of the authorizing law “is specifically to promote
the expression of a pro-life viewpoint[,]” as opposed to
legislation “allowing . . . for the private expression of
various views[.]” Rose, 361 F.3d at 793 (quotation marks and
citation omitted).

19
government-only speech or that it seeks volunteers to help

disseminate a government-only message.

The specialty license plate program also has a significant

revenue-raising component. The NC DMV is authorized to develop

a specialty license plate only after it has received three

hundred applications from North Carolina drivers interested in

the plate. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-81.12(b84). The specialty

plate costs a vehicle owner an additional $25 per year. N.C.

Gen. Stat. § 20-79.7. And $10 of that annual fee go to the

North Carolina Highway Fund. Id. As we noted in SCV I:

If the General Assembly intends to speak, it is
curious that it requires the guaranteed collection of
a designated amount of money from private persons
before its ‘speech’ is triggered. It is not the case,
in other words, that the special plate program only
incidentally produces revenue for the [government].
The very structure of the program ensures that only
special plate messages popular enough among private
individuals to produce a certain amount of revenue
will be expressed.

SCV I, 288 F.3d at 620 (footnote omitted).

Finally, the large number and wide array of specialty

plates also weigh in favor of private speech. North Carolina

drivers may choose from over two hundred specialty plates. And

the subjects of those plates range from the controversial (Sons

of Confederate Veterans, whose confederate flag logo many “view

to be a symbol of racism and slavery,” Rose, 361 F.3d at 801

(Gregory, J., concurring)), to the religious (Knights of

20
Columbus, a civic organization “which requires members to be

practicing Catholics,” Roach v. Stouffer, 560 F.3d 860, 868 (8th

Cir. 2009)), to the seemingly irrelevant to any conceivable

North Carolina government interest (e.g., out-of-state

universities). It defies logic, and may in fact create other

problems (such as Establishment Clause issues in the case of the

Knights of Columbus) to suggest that all of these plates

constitute North Carolina’s—and only North Carolina’s—message.

In sum, the first SCV factor, the central purpose of the

program in which the speech in question occurs, weighs in favor

of finding the speech at issue here private.

2. The Degree Of Editorial Control Exercised By The
Government Or Private Party Over The Content

The second factor, “the degree of editorial control

exercised by the government or private entities over the content

of the speech,” weighs in favor of the government. The

legislature determined, and the governor approved, the “Choose

Life” message. 2011 N.C. Sess. Laws 392 (“The plate shall bear

the phrase ‘Choose Life.’”). And the parties themselves agree

that “complete editorial control” rests with North Carolina.

Appellees’ Br. at 12.

3. The Identity Of The Literal Speaker

The third SCV factor, the identity of the literal speaker,

weighs in favor of private speech. In coming to that

21
conclusion, we first consider Wooley, in which the Supreme Court

held that New Hampshire residents had a First Amendment right to

cover the “Live Free Or Die” state motto on the standard state

license plate. 430 U.S. 705. Significantly, the Supreme Court

there declared that New Hampshire’s citizens found themselves

“faced with a state measure” that “invades the sphere of

intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First

Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official

control.” Id. at 715 (quotation marks omitted). In other

words, the Supreme Court deemed license plates a sphere of

private “intellect and spirit” that “implicat[es] First

Amendment protections” from government control. Id. 8

Moreover, any argument that the state alone is the literal

speaker is substantially weaker here than it was in Wooley. In

Wooley, the slogan at issue was the state motto, and it appeared

on all non-commercial New Hampshire plates, “a fact presumably

apparent to anyone driving in New Hampshire.” SCV II, 305 F.3d

at 244 (Williams, J.). “A fortiori must it be the case that

8
North Carolina suggests that Wooley—which predates the
Supreme Court’s recognition of the government speech doctrine
and the “control test” North Carolina contends flows from
Johanns and Summum—is no longer good law. Yet that contention
flies in the face of Johanns itself, in which the Supreme Court
majority recognized the continued validity of, and
distinguished, Wooley. Johanns, 544 U.S. at 565 n.8. Clearly,
the Supreme Court did not view Wooley as passé. Neither do we.

22
speech placed on a license plate by the government for a fee at

the request of a private organization or individual is at a

minimum partly the private speech of that organization or

individual.” Id. at 246 (Luttig, J.).

Indeed, to any reasonable observer, the literal speaker of

a message on a specialty plate that the observer knows the

vehicle owner selected is surely the vehicle owner. Messages on

some specialty license plates, such as the dance plate “I’d

Rather Be Shaggin,” N.C. Gen. Stat. 20-79.4(b)(203) (emphasis

added), or the plate depicting a dog and cat and stating “I

care,” N.C. Gen. Stat. 20-79.4(b)(12) (emphasis added), make the

connection explicit.

We do not deny that specialty license plates are state

property. Nor do we deny that even specialty plates, which must

be authorized by state law, to some extent bear North Carolina’s

imprimatur. Nevertheless, the copious specialty license plates,

including “Choose Life,” available to North Carolina drivers

constitute “voluntary speech that people are making . . . .”

Remark of Representative Tim Moore to the North Carolina House

Fin. Comm. (June 2, 2011), J.A. 19 ¶ 33. Specialty plates are

closely associated with the drivers who select and pay for them.

And the driver, on whose car the special message constantly

appears for all those who share the road to see, is the ultimate

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communicator. The third factor, the identity of the literal

speaker, thus weighs in favor of private speech.

4. Whether The Government Or The Private Party Bears
Ultimate Responsibility For The Speech’s Content

Finally, we must conclude that the fourth factor, the

ultimate responsibility for the speech, weighs in favor of

private speech. “When a special license plate is purchased, it

is really the private citizen who engages the government to

publish his message,” not the other way around. SCV II, 305

F.3d at 246 (Luttig, J.). Indeed “‘but for’” the private

individual’s action, the specialty license plate would never

exist. Id. North Carolina drivers must apply for the specialty

plate, which is issued only after at least three hundred seek

the plate. Further, those private individuals must pay for the

specialty plate “over and above the cost exacted for a standard

license plate.” Id.

In sum, applying SCV’s instructive factors to the facts at

hand, we conclude that three of the four factors indicate that

the specialty plate speech at issue is private, while one

suggests that the specialty plate speech is government. In

other words, we agree with the district court “that sufficient

private speech interests are implicated by the specialty license

plates to preclude a finding of purely government speech.”

Conti, 912 F. Supp. 2d at 375.

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 Our conclusion is in line with those reached by our Sister

Circuits in similar cases. With only one exception, all

Circuits to have addressed the issue have held that specialty

license plates implicate private speech rights and cannot

properly be characterized as solely government speech. Roach,

560 F.3d 860; Stanton, 515 F.3d 956; Choose Life Ill., Inc. v.

White, 547 F.3d 853 (7th Cir. 2008); Women’s Emergency Network

v. Bush, 323 F.3d 937 (11th Cir. 2003); cf. Perry v. McDonald,

280 F.3d 159 (2d Cir. 2001). The sole outlier, the Sixth

Circuit, held in Bredesen that Tennessee’s “Choose Life”

specialty plate constituted pure government speech. 441 F.3d

370. For the many reasons discussed above, we must agree with

the Seventh Circuit that “this conclusion is flawed . . . .”

White, 547 F.3d at 863. We have no hesitation in holding that

the “Choose Life” plate at issue here implicates private speech

rights and cannot correctly be characterized as pure government

speech.

D.

On appeal, North Carolina argues only that because its

specialty plates are government speech, North Carolina can

viewpoint-discriminate free from First Amendment constraints.

North Carolina did not argue, for example, that even if we were

to deem specialty plates mixed speech, North Carolina still

wins. North Carolina did not challenge in any way the district

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court’s conclusion that, upon finding private speech rights

implicated, “the State’s offering of a Choose Life license plate

in the absence of a pro-choice plate constitutes viewpoint

discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.” Conti, 912

F. Supp. 2d at 375. That conclusion, which is supported by

Rose, therefore stands. See Rose, 361 F.3d at 799 (“By limiting

access to a specialty license plate to those who agree with its

pro-life position, the State has distorted the forum in favor of

its own viewpoint. This it may not do.”).

North Carolina nevertheless laments that if it has created

a forum, it “must allow all viewpoints to be heard via specialty

plates.” Appellants’ Br. at 30. This complaint seems at odds

with North Carolina’s contention that its vast array of

specialty plates “celebrat[es]” the “diversity of its citizen’s

interests . . . .” Id. at 18, 41. Apparently, North Carolina

wishes to celebrate only some interests of some of its citizens—

namely those with which it agrees. This, it may not do.

North Carolina then sounds the death knell for specialty

plates, predicting a “flood” of “Kill The Sea Turtles” and

“Children Last” plates that will force it to end its specialty

plate program. Appellants’ Br. at 27-29. Melodrama aside, our

ruling today “does not render [North] Carolina powerless to

regulate its specialty license plate forum.” Rose, 361 F.3d at

799. But it must do so in a viewpoint-neutral fashion—which it

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already does, to some extent, by requiring three hundred

applicants before issuing a new specialty plate. Surely such a

requirement can filter out “frivolous license plate proposals”

and prevent the roads from being inundated with “license plates

advocating reckless pet breeding.” Bredesen, 441 F.3d at 391

(Martin, J., dissenting).

Another alternative: North Carolina can choose to avoid

the reproductive choice debate altogether. Illinois, for

example, “excluded the entire subject of abortion from its

specialty-plate program.” White, 547 F.3d at 865. The Seventh

Circuit upheld that viewpoint-neutral restriction, noting that

“the State has effectively imposed a restriction on access to

the specialty-plate forum based on subject matter: no plates on

the topic of abortion. It has not disfavored any particular

perspective or favored one perspective over another on that

subject; instead, the restriction is viewpoint neutral.” Id. at

866. But see Stanton, 515 F.3d 956. After all, “[i]t is one

thing for states to use license plates to celebrate birds and

butterflies . . . . It is quite another for the state to

privilege private speech on one side-and one side only-of a

fundamental moral, religious, or political controversy.”

Planned Parenthood Of S.C. Inc. v. Rose, 373 F.3d 580, 581 (4th

Cir. 2004) (Wilkinson, J., voting to deny rehearing en banc).

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 III.

In sum, North Carolina invites its vehicle owners to

“[m]ake a statement” and “promote themselves”—but only if they

are on the government’s side of a highly divisive political

issue. This, North Carolina may not do. Because the specialty

plate speech at issue implicates private speech rights and is

not pure government speech, North Carolina’s authorizing a

“Choose Life” plate while refusing to authorize a pro-choice

plate constitutes viewpoint discrimination in violation of the

First Amendment.

AFFIRMED

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