http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/nyregion/your-public-service-ad-not-here.html 2016-10-07 21:46:39 Your Public Service Ad? Not Here An advocacy group wanted to place a billboard at Newark Liberty International Airport which explained that requiring a passenger to switch seats based on gender was illegal. It was rejected. === Last year, on a Turkish Airlines flight bound for Istanbul from Tel Aviv, Jo-Ann Mort encountered an agitated Hasidic man who had been assigned the seat next to hers. Ms. Mort overheard him ask another man, a Reform rabbi in the next seat of their row, if they could switch places. Adhering to the strictest interpretation of Jewish law, the Hasidic man did not want to sit beside a woman who was not his wife. The rabbi said no, so the man asked several other passengers to change seats with him until one young woman finally agreed. Eventually Ms. Mort became involved with the Last month, the On the face of it, an ad informing women, in a secular context, that they don’t have to bow to the imperatives of a religious patriarchy would seem to qualify, but the broader mission of administrators is to protect a range of sensitivities that ultimately become unclassifiable. The Government agencies have also been known to use transit space to advance their own social causes. Three years ago, New York City’s Human Resources Administration famously ran The Israel Religious Action Center responded to the rejection of its billboard in Newark by hiring a civil rights lawyer who quickly informed the Port Authority of a relevant decision delivered in August by a federal appellate court. The ruling concluded that Philadelphia International Airport’s ban on noncommercial advertising violated the First Amendment. Five years ago the N.A.A.C.P. had sought to display an ad at the airport that read: “Welcome to America, home to 5 percent of the world’s people and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Let’s build a better America together.” It was rejected. The N.A.A.C.P. sued the city, which argued that it sought to minimize controversy. At one point during the protracted case, a deposed airport executive stated that management made a “huge effort” to keep the airport environment “soothing and pleasing,” as if standing by a baggage carousel was supposed to feel like tai chi in Big Sur. The case followed another in Pennsylvania, resolved five years ago, in which the same appellate court found that the Port Authority of Allegheny County’s refusal to allow a voter-education ad in Pittsburgh buses stood in the way of free speech. The ad was meant to inform convicted felons that, in Pennsylvania, they retained the right to vote once they were released from prison. The agency maintained that it banned noncommercial advertising, but the Prompted by the Philadelphia decision, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey now says it is undertaking a review of its guidelines, making it likely that the seating ad will eventually appear at a local airport. One line of argument in these cases revolves around the notion that people shouldn’t be forced to confront anything that might offend them while they are held captive — waiting for a bus, train or plane — in public space. But that reasoning belies the extent to which we largely ignore what is put in front us in favor of the private worlds we enable our technologies to create. More unsettling is the notion that meaningful messaging finally finds its place, but no one bothers to look up from their smartphones.