GRAND RAPIDS, MI – David DeVarti can have his “WAR SUX” personalized license plate after all.
Think that sucks?
That can go on a plate, too.
Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and DeVarti have reached a settlement of a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s denial of his request for a WAR SUX license plate.
The consent judgment calls for the state to pay $21,500 in attorney fees.
DeVarti and Michael Matwyuk, whose request for “INF1DL” was initially rejected, jointly sued the Secretary of State in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids. Matwyuk eventually got his plate. The denial of INF1DL was declared an administrative error.
But the state defended denying DeVarti’s WAR SUX plate. Attorneys argued that SUX carries a sexual connotation inappropriate for children.
Related: Lawsuit over 'INF1DL' and 'WAR SUX' license plates headed to trial
U.S. District Judge Gordon Quist earlier rejected that argument and said Secretary of State guidelines were overly broad.
"Although the Department of State has adopted internal guidelines to augment the statute by providing some definite standards, the guidelines do not alleviate the potential for viewpoint discrimination.
"In fact, the guidelines, which preclude combinations that are irreverent toward 'sacred things,' including God, and that negatively portray a given racial, religious, ethnic or socioeconomic group, including persons of a particular gender or sexual orientation, explicitly sanction viewpoint discrimination."
Based on the judge’s 26-page ruling, the sides reached an agreement: The state will not enforce the “offensive to good taste and decency” restriction, DeVarti can have his WAR SUX plate by paying appropriate fees and the state will pay his attorney's fees.
The judgment does not authorize or prohibit development of new policies that regulate personalized plates as long as the policies or guidelines are on the state’s website, as an administrative rule or statute, and provided in writing to those seeking personalized plates; are reasonable and viewpoint neutral; and that a reasonable person can readily identify standards for inclusion and exclusion.
Officials cannot reject plates for subjective reasons.
The agreement does not limit the state from restricting speech that falls outside of the First Amendment.
The state can still impose restrictions on requests for plates that are indecent, or contain profanity, have configurations of a sexual nature or portray a negative image of a given racial, religious or socioeconomic group, including those of a particular gender or sexual orientation.
Configurations that are unacceptable to a society’s collective values, such as “COPKILR,” or those dealing with illegal drugs, also fall out of bounds.
The agreement said the state “shall not prohibit the word, ‘sucks’ and its variations such as ‘SUX” and “SUKS” on the grounds that the word is sexual in nature, profane, vulgar or otherwise inappropriate when, in context, the word is being used as the slang term meaning ‘is objectionable or inadequate.’”
John Agar covers crime for MLive/Grand Rapids Press E-mail John Agar: jagar@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReporterJAgar