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ACLU Sues D.C. Metro After It Rejects Ad With Text Of First Amendment

Rejected submission by DeathMonkey at 2017-08-10 18:55:30
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The four plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority are from across the political spectrum: the ACLU, a health care group called Carafem that provides abortions, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

What they have in common is that the transit agency known as WMATA has rejected their advertisements, saying the ads ran counter to its guidelines. They have now banded together, saying the guidelines introduced in 2015 violate their First Amendment right to free speech.

In fact, the ACLU's rejected advertisement displays the text of the First Amendment in English, Arabic and Spanish, with the ACLU's logo and the slogan "We the People."

"In its zeal to avoid hosting offensive and hateful speech, the government has eliminated speech that makes us think, including the text of the First Amendment itself," said ACLU senior staff attorney Lee Rowland. "The ACLU could not more strongly disagree with the values that Milo Yiannopoulos espouses, but we can't allow the government to pick and choose which viewpoints are acceptable."

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542575416/aclu-sues-d-c-metro-after-it-rejects-ad-with-text-of-first-amendment [npr.org]


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