Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE: MAR) And Free Speech

The nonprofit anti-war group Project Billboard signed a $368,000 lease with Clear Channel Spectacolor for the space, planning to display a 69-by-44 foot vertical billboard showing a bomb and a fuse in stars and stripes with the words "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war."

After being told by Clear Channel that the ad was "distasteful" and would not be approved, the group filed suit in federal court.

The billboard was to be displayed on the hotel at 45th and Broadway for three months starting Aug. 2, and ending on Election Day.

During a court hearing yesterday, Clear Channel's lawyer, Robert H. Pees, told U.S. District Judge Denny Chin that even if his client approved the image, they needed the consent of the building's owners, as stipulated in a rider to the contract.

Deborah Rappaport, a board member of Project Billboard, and the group's lawyer, Doug Curtis, said they had not seen the rider before but admitted that it had been signed by their media buyer.

The defense said Clear Channel still has concerns about the bomb imagery as "it raises issues more about emotional than political nature."

"Those of us who have been in New York for a while understand the sensitivities New Yorkers have for bombs," the defense lawyer said to the judge.

Duffy said a second proposed design, which would have replaced the bomb with a dove, also was rejected by hotel management.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/newyork/politics/nyc-nybill143892479jul14,0,2293938.story?coll=nyc-manheadlines-politics

Kathleen Duffy, spokeswoman for the Marriott Marquis, said the hotel had originally understood that the billboard would be used for an ad urging people to vote. She said the hotel was surprised by the submission of an antiwar message.

She told the Times the hotel “reserved the right to turn down ‘anything that has overt sexual content or is political’” and that it had rejected or demanded modifications to past ads with sexual content. “We have not had a political ad presented before,” Duffy said.

“There are a lot of ads in Times Square that I might find objectionable and my wife might find objectionable, but that’s the nature of democracy,” Wolfson told the Times. “When you have a corporation with very clear ties to the Bush administration making decisions on free speech, it’s a problem.”
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/5519/1/224

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Marriott Ownership Resorts sued for sexual harassment
Prabha Natarajan
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Marriott Ownership Resorts, based on allegations by a former female employee at Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club Resort that she was fired because she rejected a boss's sexual advances.
http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2004/07/12/daily47.html

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