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Page Number: 24.0

6 

AGENCY FOR INT’L DEVELOPMENT v. ALLIANCE FOR 

OPEN SOCIETY INT’L, INC. 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

receipt  of  federal  funding,  its  recourse  is  to  decline  the
funds,” ante, at 7, and to draw on its own coffers. 

The majority cannot credibly say that this speech condi-
tion  is  coercive,  so  it  does  not.    It  pussyfoots  around  the
lack  of  coercion  by  invalidating  the  Leadership  Act  for 
“requiring  recipients  to  profess  a  specific  belief ”  and  “de-
manding that funding recipients adopt—as their own—the
Government’s view on an issue of public concern.”  Ante, at 
12 (emphasis mine).  But like King Cnut’s commanding of 
the tides, here the Government’s “requiring” and “demand-
ing” have no coercive effect.  In the end, and in the circum-
stances of this case, “compell[ing] as a condition of federal 
funding the affirmation of a belief,” ante, at 15 (emphasis 
mine), is no compulsion at all.  It is the reasonable price of 
admission to a limited government-spending program that
each organization remains free to accept or reject.  Section 
7631(f)  “defin[es]  the  recipient”  only  to  the  extent  he  de-
cides that it is in his interest to be so defined.  Ante, at 12. 

* 

* 

* 

Ideological-commitment  requirements  such  as  the  one 
here  are  quite  rare;  but  making  the  choice  between  com-
peting  applicants  on  relevant  ideological  grounds  is  un-
doubtedly quite common.  See, e.g., Finley, supra.  As far 
as  the  Constitution  is  concerned,  it  is  quite  impossible  to
distinguish  between  the  two.  If  the  government  cannot 
demand a relevant ideological commitment as a condition
of  application,  neither  can  it  distinguish  between  appli-
cants  on  a  relevant  ideological  ground.    And  that  is  the 
real evil of today’s opinion.  One can expect, in the future,
frequent  challenges  to  the  denial  of  government  funding 
for relevant ideological reasons.

The  Court’s  opinion  contains  stirring  quotations  from 
cases  like  West  Virginia  Bd.  of  Ed.  v.  Barnette,  319  U. S. 
624 (1943), and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 
512 U. S. 622 (1994).  They serve only to distract attention