BART ad from anti-Semitic group prompts outrage

A "History Matters" ad by the Institute of Historical Review went up in Powell and Montgomery St. BART stations in September, sparking controversy over its past as an anti-Semitic organization. A "History Matters" ad by the Institute of Historical Review went up in Powell and Montgomery St. BART stations in September, sparking controversy over its past as an anti-Semitic organization. Photo: Alyssa Pereira / SFGate Photo: Alyssa Pereira / SFGate Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close BART ad from anti-Semitic group prompts outrage 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

A Holocaust denial group has paid BART $6,400 to display an ad at two BART stations in San Francisco that read: “History matters.”

The advertiser is the Institute for Historical Review, based in Fountain Valley in Orange County, and is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

The SPLC’s website calls the group “once a prominent voice in extremist circles.” It says the group’s past conferences have been “networking opportunities” for neo-Nazis and anti-Semites such as David Irving, and a now-defunct publication it produced denied facts about concentration camps and the Diary of Anne Frank.

People took to social media to denounce the ad, which BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said the agency initially sought to reject and does not endorse.

Tweets called BART “hurt for cash” and “normalizing anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial” by allowing the ad.

The “history matters” ad is on display through the end of September at Montgomery and Powell St. station platforms, on digital displays in all-caps red block text.

Institute director Mark Weber denied that the organization promotes hate. He said the ad is intended to warn people to learn from the United States’s recent record of war as President Trump deploys more troops to the Middle East.

“The ad is pretty unobjectionable,” Weber said. The original submission to BART featured a website link, which the final edition on the platform does not show.

Trost said that the agency rejected the version with the website because the content on the webpage could be viewed as hate speech.

The agency’s legal team determined that the revised version, with just “history matters” superimposed over a globe and the group’s name, was valid under prior First Amendment rulings.

“Free speech court rulings reinforce the fact that BART cannot reject the ads as they are currently written,” Trost said. “Nor can we reject the ads based on the group purchasing the ad.”

Trost said that BART does not endorse the ads.

Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu