SEATTLE — The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington sued King County on Wednesday over its refusal to place advertisements critical of the Israeli government on Metro buses.
The First Amendment lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, says Metro had a long history of allowing noncommercial advertisements, and that made the buses a designated public forum.
The county had signed a contract with the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign to run ads reading, “Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work,” for $2,760 on a dozen buses.
The county reneged when pro-Israel groups began seeking to run contrary advertisements, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction ordering the county to honor the contract.
“In a free and democratic society, we cannot allow the government to suppress lawful speech, even speech that may stir emotions,” said Kathleen Taylor, executive director of the ACLU of Washington.
King County Executive Dow Constantine said at the time that he was canceling the advertisement under a tenet of the county’s policy restricting ads that could disrupt the transit system.
“Given the dramatic escalation of debate in the past few days over these proposed ads, and the submission of inflammatory response ads, there is now an unacceptable risk of harm to or disruption of service to our customers should these ads run,” Constantine said last month.
The county also announced a temporary change to its policy, saying it would no longer allow noncommercial ads on buses except those advertising government services. The ads bring in little money, generate hundreds of hours of staff time and distract from Metro’s mission of providing bus service, Constantine said.
County spokesman Frank Abe said Wednesday that officials welcomed the lawsuit as a way to further clarify Metro’s ability to regulate bus ads.
The ACLU insists that because the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign’s ads were approved under the old policy, the group’s ads should be allowed to run. ACLU spokesman Doug Honig said the organization would work with the county as it considers a permanent policy on noncommercial bus ads.
He said he thought it was useful to have bus ads available to nonprofit organizations, including advocacy groups, as a relatively low-cost way of reaching the public with educational messages and creating dialogue over public issues.
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