Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 654

524US2

Unit: $U95

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 569 (1998)

609

Souter, J., dissenting

sponse is that reading the statute as a mandate that may
be satisﬁed merely by selecting diverse panels renders
§ 954(d)(1) essentially redundant of § 959(c), which provides
that the review panels must comprise “individuals reﬂecting
a wide geographic, ethnic, and minority representation as
well as individuals reﬂecting diverse artistic and cultural
points of view.” Statutory interpretations that “render
superﬂuous other provisions in the same enactment” are
strongly disfavored. Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S.
868, 877 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted).

C

A third try at avoiding constitutional problems is the
Court’s disclaimer of any constitutional issue here because
“[§] 954(d)(1) adds ‘considerations’ to the grant-making proc-
ess; it does not preclude awards to projects that might be
deemed ‘indecent’ or ‘disrespectful,’ nor place conditions on
grants, or even specify that those factors must be given any
particular weight in reviewing an application.” Ante, at
580–581. Since “§ 954(d)(1) admonishes the NEA merely to
take ‘decency and respect’ into consideration,” ante, at 582,
not to make funding decisions speciﬁcally on those grounds,
the Court sees no constitutional difﬁculty.

That is not a fair reading.

Just as the statute cannot be
read as anything but viewpoint based, or as requiring noth-
ing more than diverse review panels, it cannot be read as
tolerating awards to spread indecency or disrespect, so long
as the review panel, the National Council on the Arts, and
the Chairperson have given some thought to the offending
qualities and decided to underwrite them anyway. That,
after all, is presumably just what prompted the congres-
sional outrage in the ﬁrst place, and there was nothing naive
about the Representative who said he voted for the bill be-
cause it does “not tolerate wasting Federal funds for sexually
explicit photographs [or] sacrilegious works.”
136 Cong.
Rec. 28676 (1990).