A judge in Washington state was expected to rule on Friday, Feb. 18 whether it was unconstitutional for a county to cancel a bus ad  that spoke out against Israeli Army war crimes.

SeaMAC’s bus ad. The ads, scheduled to run on Seattle buses, were pulled.

In King County Washington, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of the civil rights group Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC) on January 19, urging the courts to make King County publish a paid bus ad expressing its views on actions of the Israeli government.

The ad featured a group of children next to a bomb-damaged building with the text “Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work.”

“Many Americans are concerned about political rhetoric and fear where it can lead, but chipping away at our fundamental speech rights is not the answer,” said ACLU-Washington Executive Director Kathleen Taylor.

The SeaMAC ad was originally approved on December 14, 2010 and was scheduled to run on 12 buses for four weeks. Only when the county received negative feedback about the upcoming ad did County Executive Dow Constantine change his mind and pull it.

SeaMAC was told formally on December 23 that their ad would not run.

“Several of the calls and emails conveyed an intent to block or vandalize metro buses… there were some communications that could be interpreted as expressing more violent, if less specific, intentions,” said Constantine in court. “It was also reported to me that some messages from our customers expressed fear about riding Metro buses in light of the SeaMAC Ad.”

According to the ACLU of Washington Communications Director Doug Honig, King County had no problems running controversial ads or ads on the Gaza conflict before.

“Paid ads related to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza previously have run on Metro buses, as have ads with atheist messages,” Honig said.  “The SeaMAC ad was submitted and approved under King County’s written advertising policy.”

After King County canceled the ad, they announced that they would be implementing a new advertising policy.

“Threats of violence are, indeed, intimidating. If the threats are at all credible,” said Taylor. “the County should treat them seriously, but not by suddenly changing its rules and limiting ads that assert a political opinion.”

A similar situation occurred here in Michigan, when a local citizen, Blaine Coleman also wanted to pay for a “Boycott Israel” bus ad in Ann Arbor.

“It took me 14 emails to get a response from them,” Coleman said. “ Before then, I never got a yes or a no, but was constantly told they would look at it.”

Coleman contacted the Ann Arbor Transit authority with a suggestion for an ad. After 14 emails he received a no, but without a reason.

“They sent me a list of their rules and regulations for ads, but never told me directly why mine was rejected. What am I supposed to do? Look though the rules and pick one?”

Coleman was never contacted as to how to make his ad adhere to the rules of the transit authority, but believes it was because his ad spoke out against Israel that it was rejected.

The ACLU in Washington is awaiting the ruling of the judge, which will hopefully allow the ad to run on the Metro buses, despite the political leanings of some citizens.

“We should keep in mind that mild speech doesn’t need protection,“ said Taylor in a press release. “It is when we are faced with controversial speech, speech that is intensely upsetting to some people, that our adherence to the First Amendment is most important.”