Opinion ID: 201356
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The MBTA's Policy and Practice

Text: 159 For the government's policy and practice to create a designated public forum, the government must intend to make the property `generally available' to a class of speakers. Ark. Educ. Television Comm'n v. Forbes ( AETC ), 523 U.S. 666, 678, 118 S.Ct. 1633, 140 L.Ed.2d 875 (1998) (quoting Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 264, 102 S.Ct. 269, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981)). Change the Climate asserts 7 that the MBTA's policy and practice have made its advertising space generally available to commercial and non-profit organizations for the expression of views by anyone willing to pay its advertising fees. The MBTA does not dispute that any commercial or non-commercial advertiser may submit advertisements under its policy, and that it has intentionally facilitated access for all non-profit organizations by offering them a half-price discount on the fees charged to commercial advertisers. 160 As a preliminary matter, it is appropriate to state that the fact that the MBTA has chosen to include in its guidelines an assertion to the effect that it intends that its facilities constitute nonpublic forums should not be determinative of that issue. Otherwise, such a self-serving approach would allow the government to simply declare property a non-public forum whenever conflicts of this sort arose. See Int'l Soc. for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672, 695 (1992) (Kennedy, J., concurring). Similarly, the fact that a particular category of speech, such as that regarding tobacco sales, is excluded from a forum does not preclude the designation of a public forum. New York Magazine, 136 F.3d at 129-30 ([I]t cannot be true that if the government excludes any category of speech from a forum ... that forum becomes ipso facto a non-public forum.). Nor does the fact that the MBTA charges a fee for the use of its advertising space preclude the creation of a designated public forum, because [d]espite the existence of a fee, the [government] may nevertheless have allowed indiscriminate use of the forum by anyone willing to pay. Air Line Pilots Ass'n, Int'l v. Dep't of Aviation of the City of Chicago, 45 F.3d 1144, 1155 (7th Cir.1995). 161 Furthermore, I believe it is worthwhile to consider the situation today within the context of the MBTA's advertising policies in the years leading up to the events at issue in this litigation. I begin by noting that in 1994, in AIDS Action, we found that the advertising policy promulgated by the MBTA was scarcely coherent, [and] invite[d] the very discrimination that occurred in [that] case, and was properly enjoined. 42 F.3d at 12. In the period between AIDS Action and the present litigation, from 1995 to at least 1999, the MBTA required that: 162 [a]ll advertisements at any time inserted or placed by the Contractor in or upon any locations or display devices shall be of a reputable character, and the appearance of all advertisements shall be acceptable to and in accordance with the [MBTA's] Standards for Character and Appearance of Advertisements. No libelous, slanderous, or obscene advertisements, may be accepted by the Contractor for display in or upon the Authority's transit facilities. Advertisements shall be submitted in advance to the Authority for review at the Authority's request or whenever the Contractor reasonably believes such advertisements may be objectionable within the meaning of this Article. 163 This policy was supplemented by an April 21, 1995 letter from the MBTA Interim General Manager, Robert Mabardy, which contained additional guidelines: 164 The MBTA will refuse any advertisement that is indecent to child viewers, or is of a nature to frighten children, either emotionally or physically. 165 ... 166 These guidelines shall not be deemed to prohibit indecent or frightening language that could be considered double entendre, provided that, if a child asked an adult the meaning of such indecent or frightful language, the adult could give a reasonable and truthful answer without reference to indecent or frightening activities or language. 167 In 1999, the MBTA formulated new bid specifications for transit advertising, which contained a new version of the advertising policy. The 1999 bid specifications prohibited the display of advertisements for tobacco products and echoed the 1992 bid specifications, with the following provisions added: 168 The MBTA will not accept advertisements containing violent criminal content, firearms, profane content, promotional materials that is harmful to juveniles, and advertisements that denigrate groups based on gender, religion, race, ethnic or political affiliation. 169 Subsequently, the MBTA went through two more revisions of its guidelines, as described in the majority opinion. A new set of Interim Guidelines Regulating MBTA Advertising, promulgated on April 12, 2002, provided that the MBTA shall not display or maintain any advertisement that is: 170 Demeaning or disparaging. The advertisement contains material that demeans or disparages an individual or group of individuals on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. 171 On January 17, 2003, the MBTA issued yet another revision of its guidelines, removing the language concerning race, color, etc., and adding the prevailing community standards metric for determining whether material is demeaning or disparaging. 172 As a general rule, the more restrictive the criteria for admission and the more administrative control over access, the less likely a forum will be deemed public. Hopper v. City of Pasco, 241 F.3d 1067, 1078 (9th Cir.2001). Over the years, the MBTA's criteria for admission have been confusing at best, and it has always left the initial determinations of whether advertisements may run afoul of the advertising policy to the subjective evaluation of a private contractor. Those advertisements sent to the MBTA for review have received a similarly subjective evaluation from MBTA employees. Thus, the subjective standards in these policies create a potential for abuse, specifically the potential for viewpoint discrimination. See Hopper, 241 F.3d at 1079 (The potential for abuse of such unbounded discretion is heightened by the inherently subjective nature of the standard itself.). I emphasize that 173 [t]he government may not `create' a policy to implement its newly-discovered desire to suppress a particular message. Neither may the government invoke an otherwise unenforced policy to justify that suppression. Therefore, the government's stated policy, without more, is not dispositive with respect to the government's intent in a given forum. 174 Air Line Pilots, 45 F.3d at 1153 (citations omitted). In determining whether the MBTA has designated its advertising space as a public forum, then, one cannot rely on recent attempts by the MBTA to revise its advertising policy during the course of this litigation to indicate its prior intent on the nature of its advertising space as a forum. 175 Similarly, the MBTA's written policies cannot be considered without reference to their application in the years preceding this action. In determining whether the government has designated property to be a public forum, we have previously stated that actual practice speaks louder than words. Grace Bible Fellowship, Inc. v. Maine Sch. Admin. Dist. No. 5, 941 F.2d 45, 47 (1st Cir.1991). [C]onsistency in application is the hallmark of any policy designed to preserve the non-public status of a forum. A policy purporting to keep a forum closed (or open to expression only on certain subjects) is no policy at all for purposes of public forum analysis if, in practice, it is not enforced or if exceptions are haphazardly permitted. Hopper, 241 F.3d at 1076. In AIDS Action, we admonished the MBTA that if it were to be allowed to restrict speech, it will, at the least, need to act according to neutral standards, and it will need to apply these standards in such a way that there is no appearance that `the [government] is seeking to handicap the expression of particular ideas.' 42 F.3d at 13 (quoting R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 394, 112 S.Ct. 2538). In practice, the MBTA has not restricted access to its advertising space in a manner sufficient to indicate an intent to maintain it as a non-public or limited public forum. 176 When we decided AIDS Action, we found that despite the MBTA's attempts to present itself as a vigilant gatekeeper, the only ads other than the 1993 [AIDS awareness] ads that we know the MBTA recently rejected are certain Calvin Klein ads which somehow might have been misconstrued as endorsing the Ku Klux Klan, and an animal rights advertisement featuring a photograph of a maimed dog. Id. at 9. In reviewing the MBTA's application of its advertising policies since AIDS Action, I find that little has changed. During the five years preceding Change the Climate's first interactions with PTD, between 1995 and 1999, the MBTA refused to post only fifteen advertisements. Examples include an advertisement for the movie Psycho, which featured an image of a nude woman in a shower with blood at the bottom, rejected because it was in conflict with the MBTA's dignity in the workplace and the Commonwealth's domestic violence programs, neither of which criteria are set forth in the MBTA's advertising policy. Rejection of ads also appears to have occurred on an ad hoc, subjective basis. For example, MBTA refused to post an advertisement from the conservation organization Surfriders, aimed at discouraging people from leaving cigarette butts on the beach, apparently because it included images of people smoking. The MBTA posted, however, advertisements for Al Italia airline that featured a woman holding a cigarette with the caption, Create a buzz. Thus, the ad hoc rejection of a handful of ads over the past decade cannot serve as the basis for concluding that MBTA intended its advertising space as a non-public forum. 177