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524US2

Unit: $U95

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NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR ARTS v. FINLEY

Souter, J., dissenting

at oral argument, “there is something unique . . . about the
Government funding of the arts for First Amendment pur-
poses.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 27. However different the govern-
mental patron may be from the governmental speaker or
buyer, the argument goes, patronage is also singularly differ-
ent from traditional regulation of speech, and the limitations
placed on the latter would be out of place when applied to
viewpoint discrimination in distributing patronage. To this,
there are two answers. The ﬁrst, again, is Rosenberger,
which forecloses any claim that the NEA and the First
Amendment issues that arise under it are somehow unique.
But even if we had no Rosenberger, and even if I thought
the NEA’s program of patronage was truly singular, I would
not hesitate to reject the Government’s plea to recognize a
new, categorical patronage exemption from the requirement
of viewpoint neutrality.
I would reject it for the simple rea-
son that the Government has offered nothing to justify rec-
ognition of a new exempt category.

The question of who has the burden to justify a categorical
exemption has never been explicitly addressed by this Court,
despite our recognition of the speaker and buyer categories
in the past. The answer is nonetheless obvious in a recent
statement by the Court synthesizing a host of cases on view-
“The First Amendment presump-
point discrimination.
tively places this sort of discrimination beyond the power of
the government.” Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of
N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U. S. 105, 116 (1991). Be-
cause it takes something to defeat a presumption, the burden
is necessarily on the Government to justify a new exception
to the fundamental rules that give life to the First Amend-
It is up to the Government to explain why a sphere
ment.
of governmental participation in the arts (unique or not)
should be treated as outside traditional First Amendment
limits. The Government has not carried this burden here,
or even squarely faced it.