PHILADELPHIA – The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied the Center for Investigative Reporting’s (CIR) request for an injunction that would prohibit the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) from setting certain restrictions on advertising placed on its buses, according to a ruling issued on Sept. 25.
Although the preliminary injunction was denied, a bench trial on the merits of CIR’s complaint was conducted in early October.
The court said CIR asked it to grant a preliminary injunction after SEPTA refused to place a CIR advertisement that featured a “journalistic comic strip about disparate lending practices” on the side of its buses “because it constituted a “'political’ advertisement and expressed a position on a ‘matter of public debate.’”
U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson
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Under advertising guidelines set by SEPTA in 2015, the court said the authority does not allow “advertisements that are political in nature or contain certain political messages, including advertisements involving political or judicial figures and/or advertisements involving an issue that is political in nature in that it directly or indirectly implicates the action, inaction, prospective action or policies of a government entity.”
SEPTA’s rules also prohibit ads “expressing or advocating an opinion, position or viewpoint on matters of public debate about economic, political, religious, historical or social issues,” the opinion said.
After its proposed advertisement was rejected by SEPTA, CIR claimed in a lawsuit filed on May 3 that it was being kept from exercising its freedom-of-speech rights granted under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In denying the injunction, U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson said, “There is an obvious and great public interest in the free exchange of views on political, social and economic issues that CIR desires. On the other hand, there is a strong public interest in having viable public transportation system in a large metropolitan area, such as the greater Philadelphia area.
"Attracting and maintaining riders is a reasonable interest for a transit agency such as SEPTA."