UPDATE (4/2/19): Following a year-long White Coat Waste Project campaign, the USDA announced that its kitten slaughterhouse will close permanently and the 14 surviving cats will be adopted out. Read more.
Original post (12/21/18)
Following a free speech lawsuit filed by White Coat Waste Project in October 2018, the Maryland Transit Administration has agreed to run WCW’s ads on buses and trains criticizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wasteful and deadly kitten experiments. The WCW ads, which the MTA originally denied in apparent violation of the First Amendment, will run in early 2019.
KITTEN LAB UPDATE: Maryland stops blocking bus ads protesting killing of @USDA research kittens. @ABC7News #7OYS @WhiteCoatWaste https://t.co/IqDVAzHmvB
— Scott Taylor ABC 7 (@ScottTaylorTV) December 21, 2018
Ads protesting experimental testing on kittens by the Agriculture Department will soon appear on buses and trains in Maryland thanks to a settlement between a taxpayer watchdog group and the state. https://t.co/iATzrDd5iR @BBuchman_CNS pic.twitter.com/MlTSUsVXMV
— Courthouse News (@CourthouseNews) December 21, 2018
ORIGINAL POST (10/3/18)
This summer, Maryland state transit agencies refused to run the White Coat Waste Project ad below criticizing the USDA’s taxpayer-funded kitten laboratory on public buses and trains servicing the facility.
Now, as first reported by WJLA in Washington, D.C., WCW is suing the agencies in U.S. District Court for censoring the ads in violation of WCW’s free speech rights.
The lawsuit alleges that the Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland Transportation Administration and the Regional Transportation Agency of Central Maryland are violating the first and fourteenth amendments by arbitrarily refusing WCW’s public education ads in the absence of any formal policy prohibiting the content, or other reasonable, legally-sound justification. WCW is represented in the lawsuit by the Law Office of Matthew Strugar.
I-TEAM EXCLUSIVE: Lawsuit just filed against Maryland Dept. of Transportation & RTA by @WhiteCoatWaste who are being denied placement of this ad on buses & trains protesting killing of healthy kittens @USDA lab. My story at 5pm on @ABC7News #7OYS #KittenAct2018 pic.twitter.com/OF7dHaVlWr
— Scott Taylor ABC 7 (@ScottTaylorTV) October 3, 2018
This is just the most recent WCW effort to push back against government secrecy and overreach. Last month, WCW filed a lawsuit against the USDA for refusing to provide documents related to its kitten experiments.