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NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR ARTS v. FINLEY

Opinion of the Court

lence’), rather than isolated and treated as exogenous consid-
In keeping with that
erations.” Report to Congress 89.
recommendation, the criteria in § 954(d)(1) inform the assess-
ment of artistic merit, but Congress declined to disallow any
particular viewpoints. As the sponsors of § 954(d)(1) noted
in urging rejection of the Rohrabacher Amendment: “[I]f we
start down that road of prohibiting categories of expression,
categories which are indeed constitutionally protected
speech, where do we end? Where one Member’s aversions
end, others with different sensibilities and with different val-
ues begin.”
136 Cong. Rec. 28624 (statement of Rep. Cole-
man); see also id., at 28663 (statement of Rep. Williams) (ar-
guing that the Rohrabacher Amendment would prevent the
funding of Jasper Johns’ ﬂag series, The Merchant of Venice,
Chorus Line, Birth of a Nation, and the Grapes of Wrath).
In contrast, before the vote on § 954(d)(1), one of its sponsors
stated: “If we have done one important thing in this amend-
ment, it is this. We have maintained the integrity of free-
Id., at 28674.
dom of expression in the United States.”
That § 954(d)(1) admonishes the NEA merely to take “de-
cency and respect” into consideration and that the legislation
was aimed at reforming procedures rather than precluding
speech undercut respondents’ argument that the provision
inevitably will be utilized as a tool for invidious viewpoint
In cases where we have struck down legis-
discrimination.
lation as facially unconstitutional, the dangers were both
more evident and more substantial.
In R. A. V. v. St. Paul,
505 U. S. 377 (1992), for example, we invalidated on its face
a municipal ordinance that deﬁned as a criminal offense the
placement of a symbol on public or private property “ ‘which
one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger,
alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color,
creed, religion or gender.’ ” See id., at 380. That provision
set forth a clear penalty, proscribed views on particular “dis-
favored subjects,” id., at 391, and suppressed “distinctive
idea[s], conveyed by a distinctive message,” id., at 393.