SAN FRANCISCO – The Pacific Legal Foundation is legally challenging the California Department of Motor Vehicles personalized license plate program on behalf of five California residents, including Chris Ogilvie, on First Amendment grounds.
Ogilvie was barred for getting the following plate “OGWOOLF." The lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco this week alleges the DMV acts as speech police, limiting personal expression for “arbitrary” and “laughable” reasons, according to the lawsuit.
“Laws that give government officials discretion to ban speech they find offensive lead to senseless results,” said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Wen Fa in a statement. “Chris earned his nickname through years of service to our country, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be able to express that in a personalized license plate.”
The Northern California Record reached out to Fa for further comment.
“The DMV is not in the business of just banning things that we would consider obscene, they ban all license plates that someone might consider offensive and this includes colors and numbers and letters and things like that,” Fa said. "The DMV bans 30,000 different configurations per year."
According to the Pacific Legal Foundation, the four other Californians who joined the lawsuit had these configurations denied:
“DUK N A,” short for “Ducati and Andrea,” rejected because it sounded like an obscene phrase.
“BO11UX,” rejected because the term was said to have sexual connotations, even though “bullocks” has been used to mean “nonsense” in a national advertising campaign.
“SLAAYRR,” a reference to the metal band, rejected because it was considered “threatening, aggressive, or hostile.”
“QUEER,” a reference to a musician’s identity and record label, rejected because it was considered insulting, degrading, or expressive of contempt.
The case is Ogilvie v. Gordon, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.