Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority defends ban on political ads adopted to block AFDI ad

Ironic, eh? They happily shut down free speech when it suits them — but when it is applied to them, the outrage! the shock! the horror!

Note also the vicious bias of the Courthouse News: “by a group that calls itself the American Freedom Defense Initiative.” Would they ever write “by a group that calls itself the American Civil Liberties Union”? Also, they call my organization “an openly anti-Muslim group.” This is plain libel. If it is “anti-Muslim” to oppose jihad terror and Islamic Jew-hatred, then Courthouse News is saying that those things are part of the “religion of peace.” It is no more “anti-Muslim” to oppose jihad terror than it was “anti-German” to oppose the Nazis.

“Transit Authority’s Politics Ban Puts General Counsel in Hot Seat,” by Alexandra Jones, Courthouse News, October 2, 2018:

PHILADELPHIA (CN) – Defending a no-politics policy that took effect after an openly anti-Muslim group beat it in court, a lawyer for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority testified Monday that the agency was justified in blocking advertising about racial disparities in mortgage lending.

The Center for Investigative Reporting ran this cartoon to promote the findings of a year-long study that documented racial disparities in the mortgage market. Earlier this year, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority rejected a proposed advertising campaign derived from the same study.

SEPTA adopted the ban on politics in 2015 after its prior policy against “public issue advertising” invited a successful lawsuit by a group that calls itself the American Freedom Defense Initiative.

In the 2015 case, a federal judge found that SEPTA’s old policy was applied unevenly and that it would have to run the ads featuring a photograph of Adolf Hitler speaking with a leader of Palestine in the 1940s. “Islamic Jew-Hatred: It’s in the Quran,” the advertisement said.

This year, SEPTA is back in court to fight of First Amendment claims from a nonprofit news organization that uncovered racial disparities in the mortgage market after a year-long study.

The Center for Investigative Reporting initially promoted its findings in a 10-panel comic strip, and it filed suit in May when SEPTA refused to let it run an infographic derived from that series on Philadelphia-area buses.

U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson held a trial on the challenge Monday after refusing just a week earlier to grant an injunction.

At these proceedings, the court heard testimony from Gino Benedetti, the general counsel at SEPTA whose team is signs off on the advertising proposals that garner more than $16 million a year in revenue for the agency.

Benedetti explained that the team did additional research after the center submitted its proposed ad, and that the message the center was pushing conflicted with one paper put out by the American Bankers Association, a New York Times editorial, and numerous lawsuits and settlements about discriminatory lending practices.

Because the advertisement was found to express an opinion on matters of public debate about economic, political and social issues, Benedetti said the agency was justified in refusing it.

Benedetti discussed other advertisements that his team has rejected over the years for being too political. One called for the “freeing” of Meek Mill, a Philadelphia rapper whose incarceration this year inspired widespread backlash against disparities in the criminal-justice system.

Other materials that SEPTA rejected included Fusion Advertising based on nudity, marijuana joints and a man holding his crotch, Benedetti said.

“We look at the entire ad,” Benedetti testified. “We also look at … the subject matter of that ad being debated in our society at large.”…

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Suresh

5 years ago

Ban only on those who oppose Left/jihadis. Crooks and pro-jihadi criminals all around.

CNN and MSM canonises Mc Cain while Egyptian media expose him for being Leading supporter of Muslim Brotherhood in America and Middle east https://tinyurl.com/y9hk3dpk

Its absurd and farcical how MSM Lies and brainwashes American citizens

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aemoreira1981

5 years ago

If all are banned, it’s within 1A compliance. The MTA in Greater NY adopted the same ban as SEPTA has.

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Mohammad Izzaterd

5 years ago

Funny, the people wanting to run the mortgage discrimination ads probably cheered when your ads were banned. Sweet karma.

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Badger

5 years ago

‘It is no more “anti-Muslim” to oppose jihad terror than it was “anti-German” to oppose the Nazis’

False analogy Pamela. A muslim is a muslim. A German can be a German OR an Nazi OR both.

Shiia or sunni, wahhabi or deobandi they all operate from exactly the same play book.

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