Virginia SCV Wins License Plate
By Deborah Fitts
- June 2002 - RICHMOND, Va.

After two losses in the courts, the Commonwealth of Virginia decided in early May to give up its opposition to a specialty license plate that will display the Confederate battle-flag logo of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).

The final blow came April 29. That day the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a law passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1999 barring the flag from license plates was a violation of free speech. The court ordered the state to produce the plates with the flag logo.

Attorney Arthur Strickland, who represented the SCV's Virginia Division, said the outcome was inevitable, given the state's popular program of providing specialty plates for hundreds of organizations.

"When Virginia got into the business of deciding to make billboards out of license plates, they subjected themselves to the constraints of the First Amendment," Strickland said.

The SCV originally appeared poised to get their logo during committee hearings in 1999, but several black legislators spoke in opposition and turned the tide against, citing the flag's racist symbolism.

Now, three years later, African-American state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk expressed disappointment in the appeals court's decision. He was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, "Now we are going to be stuck for hours on the highway, perhaps behind a Confederate flag emblem staring us in the face."

Strickland said his advice was, "Avert your eyes." "I see bumper stickers and highway billboards that I find offensive on a routine basis," said Strickland. "Yet I'm not going out trying to have some government bureaucrat restrict people's expression."

Strickland noted that for the SCV, the Confederate battle flag is not about bigotry but about honoring one's ancestors. Opponents of the flag, on the other hand, see it as "political," he said.

Ironically, that very perception provides support for allowing the logo to be displayed. "Political speech is the highest sort of protected speech," Strickland explained.

Henry Kidd, commander of the Virginia SCV, indicated that the required 350 applications for plates would be submitted shortly. The first plates could be on the road by mid-summer, he said.

Virginia Gov. Mark Warner said while the logo will be "offensive to many Virginians," the state perceived an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as futile, and a waste of the state's resources.