Thomas' vote speaks volumes in license plate case - Chron.com
When was the last time Justice Clarence Thomas provided the decisive fifth vote to the U. S. Supreme Court's four liberals -- to decide against free speech. I can't think of one, but that's what happened Thursday in the court's decision in Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans, better known as the Texas license plate case. In an opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer, the four liberals and Thomas held that Texas could bar the state chapter of the Sons of Confederate veterans from creating customized license plates under a process that authorizes some 350 plate... The court's four other conservatives, including Justice Anthony Kennedy, probably the court's most aggressive free speech absolutist, said that Texas was engaging viewpoint discrimination. There, in an opinion by Kennedy, the court said that the University of Virginia couldn't engage in viewpoint discrimination when it doled out money from a student activity fund. "Metaphysical" was an awkward (and inaccurate) word to use, but what Kennedy meant to say was that the freedom of speech applied even though there was no physical space or forum in which people's speech was being restricted. And in that forum, the government couldn't prefer some speech to other speech. Source: www.chron.com
