 In a 1978 milestone in the station's contentious and unruly history, WBAI lost a 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision (FCC v. Pacifica Foundation) that to this day has defined the power of the government over broadcast material it calls indecent.In 1974, WBAI program director Marnie Mueller asked Charles Ruas to become director of arts programming.Thus the station, already at the forefront of the counterculture and anti-war protest, also became a platform for New York's avant-garde in theater, music, performance, art, and poetry.