Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 631.0

524US2

Unit: $U95

[09-06-00 18:40:44] PAGES PGT: OPIN

586

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR ARTS v. FINLEY

Opinion of the Court

cates for the Arts v. Thomson, 532 F. 2d 792, 795–796 (CA1),
cert. denied, 429 U. S. 894 (1976).

Respondents’ reliance on our decision in Rosenberger v.
Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819 (1995),
is therefore misplaced.
In Rosenberger, a public university
declined to authorize disbursements from its Student Activi-
ties Fund to ﬁnance the printing of a Christian student news-
paper. We held that by subsidizing the Student Activities
Fund, the University had created a limited public forum,
from which it impermissibly excluded all publications with
religious editorial viewpoints.
Id., at 837. Although the
scarcity of NEA funding does not distinguish this case from
Rosenberger, see id., at 835, the competitive process accord-
ing to which the grants are allocated does.
In the context
of arts funding, in contrast to many other subsidies, the Gov-
ernment does not indiscriminately “encourage a diversity of
views from private speakers,” id., at 834. The NEA’s man-
date is to make esthetic judgments, and the inherently
content-based “excellence” threshold for NEA support sets
it apart from the subsidy at issue in Rosenberger—which was
available to all student organizations that were “ ‘related to
the educational purpose of the University,’ ” id., at 824—and
from comparably objective decisions on allocating public ben-
eﬁts, such as access to a school auditorium or a municipal
theater, see Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free
School Dist., 508 U. S. 384, 386 (1993); Southeastern Promo-
tions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546, 555 (1975), or the second
class mailing privileges available to “ ‘all newspapers and
other periodical publications,’ ” see Hannegan v. Esquire,
Inc., 327 U. S. 146, 148, n. 1 (1946).

Respondents do not allege discrimination in any particular
(In fact, after ﬁling suit to challenge
funding decision.
§ 954(d)(1), two of the individual respondents received NEA
grants. See 4 Record, Doc. No. 57, Exh. 35 (Sept. 30, 1991,
letters from the NEA informing respondents Hughes and
Miller that they had been awarded Solo Performance The-