Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 658.0

524US2

Unit: $U95

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

613

Souter, J., dissenting

U. S. 146, 149 (1946) (the Postmaster General may not deny
subsidies to certain periodicals on the ground that they are
“ ‘morally improper and not for the public welfare and the
public good’ ”).

Our most thorough statement of these principles is found
in the recent case of Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of
Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819 (1995), which held that the Univer-
sity of Virginia could not discriminate on viewpoint in under-
writing the speech of student-run publications. We recog-
nized that the government may act on the basis of viewpoint
“when the State is the speaker” or when the State “disburses
public funds to private entities to convey a governmental
Id., at 833. But we explained that the govern-
message.”
ment may not act on viewpoint when it “does not itself speak
or subsidize transmittal of a message it favors but instead
expends funds to encourage a diversity of views from private
Id., at 834. When the government acts as pa-
speakers.”
tron, subsidizing the expression of others, it may not prefer
one lawfully stated view over another.

Rosenberger controls here. The NEA, like the student ac-
tivities fund in Rosenberger, is a subsidy scheme created to
encourage expression of a diversity of views from private
speakers. Congress brought the NEA into being to help all
Americans “achieve a better understanding of the past, a
better analysis of the present, and a better view of the fu-
ture.”
§ 951(3). The NEA’s purpose is to “support new
ideas” and “to help create and sustain . . . a climate encour-
imagination, and inquiry.”
aging freedom of
§§ 951(10), (7); see also S. Rep. No. 300, 89th Cong., 1st Sess.,
4 (1965) (“[T]he intent of this act should be the encourage-
ment of free inquiry and expression”); H. R. Rep. No. 99–274,
p. 13 (1985) (Committee Report accompanying bill to reauthor-
ize and amend the NEA’s governing statute) (“As the Pream-
ble of the act directs, the Endowment[’s] programs should be
open and richly diverse, reﬂecting the ferment of ideas which
has always made this Nation strong and free”). Given this

thought,