Woman sues state of Tennessee over gaming-based vanity plate
She’s had the plate “69PWNDU” for 10 years and is only seeing it flagged as "offensive"
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A Nashville woman is suing her state for banning a vanity license plate that she’s been rocking for a decade and that she says is a simple reference to two of her interests, neither of which is inherently unfit for public conversation.
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The sequence is “69PWNDU” and it’s apparently a nod to space travel and online gaming. Get it? Me neither at first, but the logic is there.
Leah Gilliam says the two numbers represent the year of the first moon landing, 1969, while the “PWNDU” is short for “powned you,” a popular way to say “owned you” or “dominated you” in online video games that pit players against each other and then give them an opportunity to talk smack on a message board.
Her lawyer says that the state’s rejection of the plate is an infringement on her right to free speech.
“Ms. Gilliam’s harmless vanity plate is transparently protected by the First Amendment , and the only illegality involved is the Tennessee Department of Revenue’s decision to violate her First Amendment rights,” Daniel A. Horwitz of Horwitz Law PLLC, Gilliam’s legal representative, told the Charlotte Observer .
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But the law says otherwise, with a State spokesperson telling the publication that “Generally, Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-4-210(d)(2) prohibits the Tennessee Department of Revenue from issuing a personalized license plate that ‘may carry connotations offensive to good taste and decency or that are misleading… Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-5-117 authorizes the revocation of a motor vehicle registration plate that was erroneously issued contrary to the law.”
In Canada, we regularly have our own debate as to whether the government is making the right calls in pulling the vanity plates they are. Here are some of the most topical from last year .
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