{"id":48302,"date":"2026-11-13T10:16:49","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T10:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new50.info\/?p=48302"},"modified":"2026-11-13T10:16:49","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T10:16:49","slug":"watch-at-it-closely-and-youll-see-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new50.info\/?p=48302","title":{"rendered":"Watch at It Closely, and You\u2019ll See It!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">A photo of a Utah personalized license plate reading \u201cDEPORTM\u201d sparked widespread criticism after high school teacher Matt Pacenza spotted it near Salt Lake City and shared the image online. Many people questioned how such a message had been approved, especially because Utah already had rules restricting personalized plates considered derogatory or offensive toward protected gr&#8230;<strong>Continue Reading<\/strong><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<p>State officials confirmed that the plate had originally been approved in 2015. After the image gained attention in January 2020, the Utah State Tax Commission began reviewing the decision and examining how complaints about personalized plates were handled. Officials also acknowledged that complaints about the same plate had been made before the controversy went viral.<\/p>\n<p>The controversy drew attention from lawmakers including Daniel Thatcher and Luz Escamilla, who questioned whether the approval process was working as intended. Utah officials later announced changes designed to give repeated public complaints more scrutiny, including review by the attorney general\u2019s office when multiple concerns were raised about the same plate.<\/p>\n<p>The incident eventually contributed to a broader discussion about how Utah should regulate personalized license plates. In February 2020, lawmakers approved legislation tightening restrictions on plates that disparage groups based on characteristics such as race, national origin, religion, citizenship status, and other protected categories. What began with one photograph ultimately exposed weaknesses in the review process and pushed officials to reconsider how questionable vanity plates were approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A photo of a Utah personalized license plate reading \u201cDEPORTM\u201d sparked widespread criticism after high school teacher Matt Pacenza spotted it near\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Watch at It Closely, and You\u2019ll See It! - New50<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/new50.info\/?p=48302\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/new50.info\/?p=48302&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Watch at It Closely, and You\u2019ll See It! 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