The Algemeiner:
In an interview with The Algemeiner, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz slammed new approved advertising guidelines announced by the New York Metropolitan TransportationAuthority, calling them “Plain Dumb” and “Unconstitutional.”
The new rules allow the M.T.A. to ban ads that it “reasonably foresees would imminently incite or provoke violence or other immediate breach of the peace.”
“A. it’s clearly unconstitutional” he said, and “b. it incentivizes people to engage in violence. What it says to people, is that if they don’t like ads, just engage in violence and then we’ll take the ads down.”
“It’s very bad policy,” he continued, “and it’s just plain dumb, because it is going to encourage violence.”
Responding to the charge in an interview with The Algemeiner, M.T.A. spokesperson Aaron Donovan declined to comment.
The new M.T.A. rules, announced yesterday, came after pro-Israel ads, which were initially rejected by the M.T.A., ran in ten New York City subway stations,after the group running the ads sued the M.T.A on first amendment grounds.
Protesters objecting to the ads set about defacing them, including in one widely reported incident where Egyptian-American activist Mona Eltahawy was charged with criminal mischief misdemeanor for spraying one with pink paint.Referencing the incident, Dershowitz said, “what the transit authority is doing, is giving people like Mona, the power to censor.”
Unconstitutional? Really?
There’s no constitutional requirement that any private or public entity facilitate your right to free speech.
The First Amendment states that you have a right to free speech. It does not state that the public–or the public’s tax dollars–are required to provide you with a podium, megaphone, or billboard. Particularly when the message you wish to convey is not in the public’s best interests.
It’s not in the interest of the general public to allow people to post messages that could incite violence on public conveyances. Allowing that would be totally irresponsible.
Been thru this, done that. There is no ban. Horse manure and hyperbole. Dershowitz is, as usual, looking for media attention by embellishing facts into inflatable fiction.
If it’s “unconstitutional” for any advertising entity to provide their own guidelines for advertising they are forced to accept (i.e… acceptance stipulating that disclosures noting it is not the expressed endorsement of those owning the ad space), then I don’t want to hear one bit of whining from conservatives about the Boy Scouts of America or other similar private entity vs government force. This was decided by the courts in favor of Geller back in July. Bull puckey on the story.
Anyone with the memory longer than a gnat will acknowledge that Rush Limbaugh, himself, used to have to provide disclaimers stating that his view is not that of the providing broadcast station prior to his show’s broadcast.