Does the DMV VIOL8 freedom?

After an honorable discharge following four oversea tours, Paul Ogilvie bought a car and wanted to combine two of his nicknames to create a personalized license plate.

He decided on “OG-WOOLF,” a combination of his military nickname, using the first two letters of his last name and “woolf,” an online screen name he’s used since 1999.

But the California Department of Motor Vehicles rejected Ogilvie’s application because his request didn’t meet the agency’s criteria.

Now the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation is legally challenging the DMV’s environmental license plate program on behalf of five California residents, including Ogilvie, on 1st Amendment grounds. 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.

“Like many Californians, our clients wanted to express messages like their nickname from the military, favorite rock band or love of motorcycles,” attorney Wen Fa said. “They shouldn’t be prevented from expressing those messages based on a DMV official’s hunch that those messages are offensive.”

Department officials declined comment on the pending litigation, which challenges a program that brought the state nearly $60 million last year.

This legal challenge follows another federal judge’s recent ruling that environmental plates “unequivocally express personal speech and not government speech,” the lawsuit argues.

In that challenge, filed by the same nonprofit legal organization, the department eventually allowed California soccer fan Jonathan Kotler to honor his favorite team with the vanity plate “COYW,” but the department didn’t change its policy. Kotler supports London-based Fulham, whose fans often chant “Come On You Whites” for their players in white jerseys.

In 2018, the department denied over 30,000 personalized plate applications of the 249,000 requests because the language didn’t meet the department’s criteria, according to the suit.

According to the DMV’s ordering system, the department will refuse any request if it carries offensive connotations to good taste and decency or if it is misleading.