The controversy over a set of ads that reads "Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work" is no reason to keep the ads from running on Metro Transit buses, says the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington.
On Jan. 19, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against King County on behalf of Seattle's Mideast Awareness Campaign to force Metro Transit to run the bus placards. The lawsuit also seeks a declaration from the court that canceling the ads violated free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.
In October, a group called the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign signed a contract with Metro Transit's advertising company, Titan Outdoor, to run the "war crimes" placards on 12 buses for four weeks, starting Dec. 27, the two-year anniversary of an Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
On Dec. 23, after meeting with the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and other groups opposed to the ads, King County Executive Dow Constantine announced he was canceling the ads. He also announced that Metro Transit had changed its 37-year-old advertising policy and was no longer accepting non-commercial ads ("Metro Transit rejects political advertising," RC, Jan. 5-11, 2011).
The Jewish Federation argued the ads could lead to violence. In its lawsuit, the ACLU says similar ads have run on Metro buses in the past and that the government has no right to prevent political messages from appearing in a designated public forum.
"Mild speech doesn't need protection," ACLU Executive Director Kathleen Taylor said in a statement. "It is when we are faced with controversial speech, speech that is intensely upsetting to some people, that our adherence to the First Amendment is most important."