CV NEWS FEED // United States District Court Judge Beryl Howell ruled this month that the Washington, D.C., metro system cannot discriminate and refuse to run a Christian ad submitted by a nonprofit.
The ad submitted by WallBuilders, an Evangelical nonprofit, depicted the Founding Fathers and the word “Christian?” and in smaller print, “To find out about the faith of our founders, go to Wallbuilders.com,” along with a QR code.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) rejected multiple drafts of the ad, despite WallBuilders removing the word “Christian” in later iterations.
According to news outlet WTOP, WMATA said “that the QR codes led to political advocacy viewpoints on the WallBuilders website. The nonprofit responded that they refused to remove the QR codes and the name of the organization’s website.”
According to the judge’s opinion, WMATA justified the rejection by citing its Guidelines Concerning Commercial Advertising 9 and 12, which prohibit “[a]dvertisements intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions,” as well as “[a]dvertisements that promote or oppose any religion, religious practice or belief,” respectively.
WallBuilders, with the unusual support of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed a lawsuit against WMATA General Manager and CEO Randy Clarke in December 2023.
On May 21, Howell, a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge, ruled in favor of WallBuilders, saying that the WMATA policy is vague and ambiguous.
“Contrary to WMATA’s suggestion, the requirement that ‘advertisements’ must be ‘intended to influence members of the public’ is an insufficient limiting standard. As WallBuilders points out, ‘[e]very advertisement seeks to influence members of the public’,” the judge’s opinion noted.
ACLU praised the judge’s ruling, but noted that it will further request that the court declare that WMATA’s guidelines against “‘issue ads’ and ads with religious content” are unconstitutional, according to WTOP.
The judge’s decision also opens up the door for the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., to have a second chance at running its own ads in the metro. In 2017, the Archdiocese filed a lawsuit against the WMATA, which rejected an ad for a Christmas fundraiser that the Archdiocese submitted.
After the court sided with WMATA, the Archdiocese appealed to the Supreme Court, which declined to review the case in 2020.
Now that the U.S. District Court has ruled that the metro system cannot discriminate against WallBuilders, the outlook for the Archdiocese’s ability to run ads could change.
