The Supreme Court today decided Walker v. Sons of Confederate Victims, which dealt with a state’s capacity to deny a specialty license plate to a group that wanted to feature a Confederate flag and the words “Sons of Confederate Veterans.” In an opinion by Justice Breyer (and joined by Justice Thomas), the Court holds 5-4 that speech on license plates is “government speech,” and therefore that the First Amendment does not stop the state of Texas from choosing what sort of message it will endorse. It would be one thing, said the Court, if the state were demanding that individuals “convey the government’s speech”–in essence acting as the government’s mouthpiece. But “as a general matter, when the government speaks it is entitled to promote a program, to espouse a policy, or to take a position. In doing so, it represents its citizens and it carries out its duties on their behalf.” The Court relied extensively on Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, another government speech case concerning a municipality’s rejection of a religious organization’s proposed monument in a public park that contained a Ten Commandments monument as well as several others. In Summum, the Court held that the municipality had not made the park available for private speech; all of the displays were government speech. The majority opinion here held that such was the case with the speciality license plates as well (oddly enough, since Texas had accepted applications from other organizations for specialty plates). Justice Alito dissented on the ground that Texas in fact does authorize specialty plates with distinctive messages that are obviously not government-endorsed speech (do see the Appendix beginning at page 18 of his opinion).