A lawyer is suing a New York airport after it rejected a short ad for his sexual harassment law firm. Now there is a huge sign of it there.
Megan Thomas signed a contract to advertise at Syracuse Hancock International Airport last summer. She wanted it to read: “When HR called it harmless flirting…we called it Exhibit A,” but the airport asked her to soften the “harsh” words.
Instead, he filed a lawsuit. Now, the ad has finally been revealed, with the wording intact – and much larger than originally intended.
Two walls of the travel hub are adorned with a giant photo of Thomas along with a large, pink advertisement, Syracuse.com first reported.
“When the airport told me the First Amendment doesn’t apply and they can do whatever they want, I realized I would need to bring a lawsuit,” Thomas said this week. “I understood that if I won this fight, it would not only protect my rights, but also the rights of other women who come after me.”
Thomas said she deliberately chose to advertise at the airport because many of her clients have complained of being sexually harassed on work trips. She also wanted it to be placed in a prominent place.
In her federal lawsuit filed in August, Thomas said the Syracuse Regional Airport Authority, which operates the airport, approved a draft version of her ad. But the next day, he said, the authority told him the ad was not approved and that the slogan was “considered a bit harsh.”
During a follow-up call, Thomas said he was told that Airport Authority leadership believed the proposed ad could be viewed as “threatening” or “intimidating” to men. And the next day, an official said the ad would not be displayed due to concerns about negative reaction from community members and that local politicians might find it offensive, according to their lawsuit.
In court documents, lawyers for SRAA said the authority introduced alternative slogans “that convey a similar message in a more professional and less misleading and insulting manner.”
A The judge disagreed As with its assessment of the tagline, an initial decision in January said the authority’s claim was “nonsense”.
Judge Anthony Brindisi said that Thomas’s slogan was no more misleading than a Chick-fil-A advertisement featuring a cow at an airport and that the phrase “Chicken 4 Days Makes You Grin” suggested that “chicken dinner will always make a person happy, or cows can talk.”
The two sides reached a confidential settlement shortly after the judge’s ruling. The new, bigger ad came out a few weeks ago.
Thomas — who also has another small ad at the airport — says calls to his Syracuse-based firm have “increased tremendously” since he signed up, noting that he has hired another attorney and plans to hire another office employee to assist him.
In a statement released Tuesday, the SRAA called the judge’s decision “unfortunate” but said the settlement “allows both parties to focus on their core corporate objectives while preserving the authority’s ability to manage and operate the airport.”
