The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] has struck down [opinion, PDF] a ban on non-commercial ads at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) for violating the first First Amendment. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) [official website] challenged the practice as being a restriction upon the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The NAACP filed suit after it was denied permission to put a sign up in the airport aimed at politicians for spending money on prisons and not public education. The city made an exception for the NAACP sign, but the city’s policy reviewed nonetheless. Judge Thomas Ambro, who penned the majority opinion, stated the city’s desire to maintain a “soothing and pleasing” environment in the PHL airport was not supported by this ban. In particular, he said the “broader effort apparently does not involve shielding travelers from noncommercial content on the ground that it might offend them,” as they show political and other potentially disconcerting images outside of its advertisements, including through televisions and other media in the airport.

Attempts by state and federal governments to regulate the kind and location of advertising in public areas is not uncommon, though the Third Circuit’s ruling is contrasted by other court’s decisions to uphold advertising regulations. In 2013, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld [JURIST report] a federal law which banned corporate and campaign advertising on public radio and television. Five years prior, that same court rejected a First Amendment challenge to a Los Angeles city ban on billboards.