Designers fighting Oklahoma law in court
Capitol: Job title at issue in lawsuit
Designers fighting Oklahoma law in court

BY JAY F. MARKS

Published: October 1, 2008

Kelly Rinehart, Maria Gore and Jeffrey Evans are breaking the law every time they tell someone what they do for a living.

They are not allowed to call themselves interior designers — even though that description is accurate — because of a state law enacted in 2006.

Rinehart, Gore and Evans have filed a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court in Oklahoma City seeking to invalidate the law that requires a state license for anyone who wants to be identified as an interior designer.

State law does not prohibit anyone from working, but a license is required to use that moniker.

"If anyone can work as an interior designer in Oklahoma, they should be able to say so,” said Jennifer Perkins, staff attorney for the Institute for Justice.

The national public interest law firm is representing Rinehart, Gore and Evans. It also is pushing similar lawsuits in two other states.

"This is about freedom of speech,” Perkins said. "We want the law changed.”

Rinehart, who earned a design degree from Oklahoma State University, said she should not be subject to such discriminatory regulations after more than a decade in the field. The test and required fees can cost more than $1,000.

"In all my years of work, not one client has ever asked me whether I've taken a special government-licensing exam,” Rinehart said.

Randy Weatherly, chairman of the Oklahoma Board of Architects, Landscape Architects and Interior Designers, declined to comment on the pending litigation. He said he has not seen the lawsuit.

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