Judge lets Bay Area woman keep her ‘RVRTSEA’ license plate — for now

Three people complained to the California DMV about the license plate's political message.(CN) — A federal judge ruled Friday that a Bay Area woman can keep her personalized license plate reading, “RVRTSEA” — at least for now.Iasmine Abdennabi has had the license plate, which is an abbreviation of the slogan, “river to the sea,” since 2024. The phrase is shorthand for: “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”The saying, often chanted during protests and rallies, has different interpretations. Some see it as a simple support for the embattled state and people of Palestine, currently under siege by Israel. Others see it as a call to arms, or worse — a call for the destruction of the state of Israel, which is bounded by Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The Anti-Defamation League, for example, calls the slogan an “antisemitic” rallying cry “denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.”Many others disagree, especially in the U.S., where the slogan can be heard at any number of pro-Palestinian protests. In her complaint, filed on Monday, Abdennabi states that to her, the phrase is not an “instruction to commit genocide,” nor “a threat against Jews,” or call to violence. She says her intended message is “support for equal civil and political rights for all persons living between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.”The California Department of Motor Vehicles received a total of three complaints about Abdennabi’s license plate, including one from a man who wrote: “This advocates for the extermination of the state of Israel and all Jewish people. It supports terrorism and encourages violence.” Following department policy, the DMV ordered Abdennabi to turn over her plates in 2025, 15 months after it had issued them.Abdennadi appealed, triggering an administrative hearing, at which a DMV representative explained the plates were removed “based on the connotation of violence or genocide.”More than a million Californians have personalized license plates, far more than any other state in the country. License plates are rejected for a number of reasons: having swear words, dirty jokes, sexual connotations, hate speech, offensive messages, and references to violence, drugs and illegal activity, including references to gangs and marijuana. No plates with the number “420” are allowed, for example.After her administrative appeal was denied, Abdennadi sued, arguing the DMV was infringing on her First Amendment rights to express her political beliefs. On Friday, a federal judge granted her a restraining order, allowing her to keep her “RVRTSEA” license plates, at least until a scheduled preliminary injunction hearing next month.In his order, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg cast doubt on the constitutionality of the regulations that allow the DMV to reject certain vanity plates.“On its face, this regulation appears to bar three separate things: fighting words, incitement, and speech referring to violence of various types,” Seeborg wrote. “One of those things is not like the others. Fighting words and incitement are long-recognized categories of low-value speech that do not merit First Amendment protection. By contrast, speech merely ‘referring to’ violence seems more akin to the language of offense, which the Supreme Court explicitly identified as protected First Amendment expression.”He added if that was the case, then the regulations were “unconstitutional because they discriminate among private speech based on viewpoint.”Abdennabi’s attorney, Michael Millen, praised the ruling.“We are grateful to the court for recognizing that the government may not serve as the arbiter of free speech,” she said in an email. “Plaintiff is a firm believer in equal civil and political rights for all persons living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and the DMV was wrong to revoke the license plate ‘RVRTSEA’ because an anonymous complainant and two other people felt it was ‘offensive.’”Attorneys for the DMV did not respond to an email requesting comment on the ruling.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads