TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Azya Thornton on Dec 10, 2025

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 8 declined to hear an appeal from a Tennessee woman challenging the rejection of her '69PWNDU' personalized plate, The Tennessean reports. Leah Gilliam argued that states’ rules for what is and isn’t allowed on personalized plates are often unclear and can amount to a “dizzying array of censorship.” She had asked the court to rule that her plate expressed her own views, not the government’s. The justices let stand a ruling from Tennessee’s highest court that vanity plates constitute government speech under the Supreme Court’s 2015 Walker precedent. The Tennessee Supreme Court issued its opinion in February, rejecting Gilliam’s First Amendment challenge to the state’s personalized plate program.