A personalized license plate reading "FMUSLMS" has made headlines in St. Cloud, Minn. after a photo was posted online on Feb. 20 and went viral, according to Fox News. State officials at the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) have promised to revoke the plate and condemned its message as "offensive and distasteful."
The license plate was first posted online by Haji Yusuf, a Somali-American Muslim whose friends had sent him a picture of the offending plate while they were driving in St. Cloud, according to NBC News. Yusuf is the community director and co-founder of #UniteCloud, an initiative that aims to use education and stories directly from the local community to help fight prejudice in the central Minnesota area, and the image was quickly shared more than 600 times.
"The Department of Public Safety apologizes for this error," read a statement sent to the Washington Post on Tuesday. "The Driver and Vehicle Services Division is reviewing its process for approving personalized license plates today and will immediately provide additional review and oversight of applications."
The anti-Muslim license plate wasn't the only controversial option that the person responsible put forward, with a partial application released by the DPS showing that "PETALOL" and "8LUGTHG" were the alternative suggestions, according to CBS. The identity of the driver in question cannot be released, but the explanation portion of the application shows that officials were told that the letter combinations were chosen because they are "names of the musical bands he is in."
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has also condemned the plate, releasing a statement on Monday saying that he was "appalled" that it had been issued by the DPS, according to St. Cloud Times.
"It is offensive, and the person who requested it should be ashamed," Dayton said in the statement. "That prejudice has no place in Minnesota."
