Jewish Judge Fears Slippery Slope Says No to Irish License Plate
Source: Montpelier Times Argus | Monday, April 30, 2001
Judge Rules Against Driver Who Wanted ‘Irish’
on Plates
By TRACY SCHMALER
Vermont Press Bureau
MONTPELIER – Carol Ann Martin is putting a whole new meaning to the phrase fighting Irish.
The Wallingford woman said Tuesday she would appeal a Superior Court decision that upheld the state’s refusal to give her vanity license plates with the word IRISH.
“I’m pretty upset about it,” she said. “I’m not upset about it being denied. I thought there might be a chance they’d deny it. But this offends me. It almost brought me to tears. I’ve ended up the racist and I don’t get it.”
Martin said she was dismayed to see Washington Superior Judge Matthew Katz clump Irish in with other ethnic slurs that were clearly offensive. “This opinion offended me,” she said. “How did I get painted a racist. There’s something wrong here.”
Katz ruled recently that the state Department of Motor Vehicles acted correctly when it denied Martin’s request because the word she wanted to use – IRISH – could be considered offensive or confusing to the public.
Katz found the department’s rules regarding vanity plates we reasonable and objective. While IRISH may not necessarily be offensive on its face, he wrote, the department could open the door to other more offensive variations if it allowed this.
“Even in the context of IRISH – evocative as it may be of leprechauns, shamrocks and Galway Bay – the need to avoid viewpoint discrimination can be quickly apparent,” he wrote. “If IRISH is permitted, because most Vermonters would not find it offensive, is NOIRISH? Although cinema buffs might consider this latter example intriguing, more folks would probably find it evocative of ‘No Irish Need Apply,’ an employment notice actually and reasonably offensive to many.”
But Martin said she thought the logic was flawed. “This decision, I don’t see the common sense in it,” she said. “I didn’t apply for NOIRISH. If someone applied for I-T, would they deny it because someone else might apply for S-H-I-T?”
The law says the commissioner can reject a word or phrase if it is considered to be offensive or confusing to the general public. The regulations attached to the law say, among other things, that a combination of letters or numbers that refer, in any language to race, religion, color, deity, ethnic heritage, gender, sexual orientation, disability status or political affiliation are not to be issued.
The rules, Katz found, laid out clear objective guidelines for DMV officials to follow in reviewing vanity plate applications. “(Department of) Motor Vehicle employees should not be expected to engage in continual ‘sensitivity roundtables,’ lacking clear and objective guidelines to decide which are offensive to the average Vermonter and which are not,” he wrote.
“It’s disappointing,” said Sen. John Bloomer, a Rutland lawyer who heard about Martin’s case and decided to represent her for free in court.
Bloomer argued that the regulations contradicted the legislative intent in crafting the original statute because the law calls for the DMV commissioner to use discretion in issuing license plates.
William Griffin, the chief assistant attorney general who argued the case for the state, agreed with the judge.
“You have to have a standard. You can’t have DMV officials playing it by ear every time,” he said.
Katz ruled that Martin’s intent, which was to display her ethnic heritage on her license plate, was an irrelevant point, and he noted that the license plate was not the best venue for such a communiqué.
“We also have very much in mind that this case is not about what message petitioner may send from her vehicle,” wrote Katz, whose own license plate is MIK, his initials. “She may affix any bumper sticker she wishes. Instead, it is about what message she may send from her state-issued license plate.”
Martin applied for the license plate last April. In previous years, she had put IRISH or some similar variation on her plates with no objection from state officials.
But recent regulations adopted by the department changed the way officials there process these applications. “I’m happy the judge found the way he did,” said DMV Commissioner Bonnie
Rutledge. “Everybody has a different opinion on what should be issued and what should not be issued. This takes a little of that subjective reasoning out of it.”
Martin’s case has evoked spirited discussion among lawmakers and others, some of whom are baffled by the rejection. Despite the strident opinions, Rutledge said the existing rules make it much easier for her office.
“We had many more problems under the old rules,” she said. There are 36,000 special plates attached to cars in Vermont. At a cost of $20 a year, the plates bring in about $600,000 in annual revenues.
Rutledge said the department spent a lot of time on content reviews, including testing the reflected images of different combinations in case some applicants try to sneak by a prohibited phrase by changing the spelling so it can only be read when looking at it in a mirror.
One combination of letters slipped through the cracks a few years ago when a driver applied and received a plate with the phrase SHTHPNS. The department tried to revoke the plate, but the driver resisted and took the case to court. A federal appeals court in New York heard arguments in that case earlier this month.
Martin said Tuesday she would try to appeal the case to the Vermont Supreme Court.
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