Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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Cite as: 524 U. S. 569 (1998)

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Opinion of the Court

on any “First Amendment” activities in an airport); Hoffman
Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U. S. 489, 499
(1982) (“prohibitory and stigmatizing effect” of a “quasi-
criminal” ordinance relevant to the vagueness analysis);
Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S., at 108 (requiring
clear lines between “lawful and unlawful” conduct). We rec-
ognize, as a practical matter, that artists may conform their
speech to what they believe to be the decisionmaking criteria
in order to acquire funding. See Statement of Charlotte
Murphy, Executive Director of NAAO, reprinted in App. 21–
22. But when the Government is acting as patron rather
than as sovereign, the consequences of imprecision are not
constitutionally severe.

In the context of selective subsidies, it is not always feasi-
ble for Congress to legislate with clarity.
Indeed, if this
statute is unconstitutionally vague, then so too are all Gov-
ernment programs awarding scholarships and grants on the
basis of subjective criteria such as “excellence.” See, e. g.,
2 U. S. C. § 802 (establishing the Congressional Award Pro-
gram to “promote initiative, achievement, and excellence
among youths in the areas of public service, personal devel-
opment, and physical and expedition ﬁtness”); 20 U. S. C.
§ 956(c)(1) (providing funding to the National Endowment for
the Humanities to promote “progress and scholarship in the
humanities”); § 1134h(a) (authorizing the Secretary of Educa-
tion to award fellowships to “students of superior ability se-
lected on the basis of demonstrated achievement and excep-
tional promise”); 22 U. S. C. § 2452(a) (authorizing the award
of Fulbright grants to “strengthen international cooperative
relations”); 42 U. S. C. § 7382c (authorizing the Secretary of
Energy to recognize teachers for “excellence in mathematics
or science education”). To accept respondents’ vagueness
argument would be to call into question the constitutionality
of these valuable Government programs and countless others
like them.