WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has freed states to control what appears on their specialty license plates, ruling Thursday that Texas authorities were justified in refusing to issue a plate bearing a Confederate battle flag.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said a state-issued license plate is “government speech,” not the private speech of a motorist. For that reason, the state may decide which messages it wants conveyed on license plates.

“When the government speaks, it is not barred by the free speech clause from determining what it says,” Justice Stephen Breyer said for the court.

Justice Clarence Thomas cast a rare vote with the court’s four liberals to form the majority.

The decision reverses rulings from several lower courts which had said that since states had allowed private groups and charities to sponsor specialty plates, the state could not censor some of them based on their message.

In the Texas case, the Sons of Confederate Veterans applied to sponsor a specialty plate that displayed a Confederate battle flag. When a state board refused to issue the plate, the group sued and won in the lower courts based on the claim that the state’s decision violated the First Amendment.