DOVER, Del. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed against Delaware government officials who recalled a vanity license plate issued to a breast cancer survivor because of what the state transportation secretary described as a “perceived profanity.”
The judge said in a ruling that the lawsuit by Kari Lynn Overington of Milton raises a “significant constitutional issue.”
“I am ready for my day in court,” Overington, 41, said in a brief phone interview.
In December 2020, Overington applied for a vanity license plate reading “FCANCER” and received it two months later.
In June 2021, she received a letter from the manager of the Division of Motor Vehicles office in Dover telling her that the plate “does not represent the division and the state in a positive manner.” DMV manager Levi Fisher wrote that any plate considered offensive will be denied or recalled, if issued in error.
Overington responded by emailing state Transportation Secretary Nicole Majeski and asking for her help. She argued that the average person would not consider her vanity tag to be obscene. She also said court rulings in other states suggest that First Amendment rights apply to vanity tags, and that any regulations must be “viewpoint neutral.”
“My vanity plate receives positive feedback everywhere I go, and I have had more than a few deep conversations with complete strangers about my cancer and how cancer has touched their lives because of it,” Overington wrote. “The community of cancer warriors, cancer survivors, and those who love them is far reaching and very supportive.”
Majeski stood by the decision to recall the vanity plate, saying officials must ensure that they are not approving license tags that contain “obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, hate speech or fighting words.”
“Your vanity plate FCANCER contains a perceived profanity, the abbreviation for the word “F(asterisk)@k”, and for that reason, it must be recalled,” Majeski wrote, apologizing for the oversight by DMV staff in initially approving the plate.
Overington then asked DOT officials to seek input from Gov. John Carney.
“In other states the governor has gotten involved in these cases and the person was able to keep their vanity tags,” she wrote. “I’d be disappointed if Governor Carney was not willing to at least consider stepping in, especially given his work with the Delaware Cancer Consortium and his connection to Beau Biden and the entire Biden…
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