The MTA approved a new policy on Wednesday that would exclude all political ads in the transit system.
The shift comes after a federal judge said last week that the MTA can’t block ads from the American Freedom Defense Initiative on its buses that read “killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah.”
Under the new guidelines, the MTA will only accept paid commercial advertising, public service announcements, and governmental messages.
“Hateful speech is not harmless speech,” said board member and Holocaust survivor Charles Moerdler, who compared the AFDI ads to the publication of “Mein Kampf” and genocide. “Only a fool or rogue would argue otherwise.”
Other MTA officials backed running the ads.
“We are stopping free expression of ideas to protect the public from reading ideas that may offend them,” said board member Jonathan Ballan. “We shouldn’t squelch free speech in an effort to protect our customers. That violates the constitution and the principles this country was founded on.”
Political ads bring in less than $1 million a year to the MTA — which took in $138 million in ad revenue in 2014.
It said the the policy will create a safe environment for riders and workers, and use less resources resolving disputes over political ads.
Pamela Geller of the AFDI started to denounce the decision but her microphone stopped working.
“You cannot shut this down,” she said during the meeting. “You call my ads hateful. These are actual quotes from high-profile Muslims. We need to have this conversation.”