Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 664

524US2

Unit: $U95

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

619

Souter, J., dissenting

we have routinely understood the overbreadth doctrine to
apply where the plaintiff mounts a facial challenge to a law
investing the government with discretion to discriminate on
viewpoint when it parcels out beneﬁts in support of speech.
See, e. g., City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co.,
486 U. S. 750, 759 (1988) (“[A] facial challenge lies whenever
a licensing law gives a government ofﬁcial or agency sub-
stantial power to discriminate based on the content or view-
point of speech by suppressing disfavored speech or disliked
speakers”); Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505
U. S. 123 (1992) (applying overbreadth doctrine to invalidate
on its face an ordinance allowing for content-based discrimi-
nation in the awarding of parade permits).

To be sure, such a “facial challenge will not succeed unless
the statute is ‘substantially’ overbroad,” New York State
Club Assn., Inc. v. City of New York, 487 U. S. 1, 11 (1988),
by which we mean that “a law should not be invalidated for
overbreadth unless it reaches a substantial number of imper-
missible applications,” New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747, 771
(1982). But that is no impediment to invalidation here.
The Court speculates that the “decency” criterion might per-
missibly be applied to applications seeking to create or dis-
play art in schools 14 or children’s museums, whereas the “re-
spect” criterion might permissibly be applied to applications

we have not recognized an ‘overbreadth’ doctrine outside the limited con-
text of the First Amendment”).

14 In placing such emphasis on the potential applicability of the decency
criterion to educational programs, the Court neglects to point out the ex-
istence of § 954a, entitled “[a]ccess to the arts through support of educa-
tion,” which is concerned speciﬁcally with funding for arts education, espe-
cially in elementary and secondary schools.
It seems that the NEA’s
“mission” to promote arts education, ante, at 584, is carried out primarily
through § 954a, not § 954. While the decency standard might be constitu-
tionally permissible when applied to applications for grants under § 954a,
that standard does not appear to be relevant to such applications at all;
the decency and respect provision appears in § 954(d), which governs grant
applications under § 954, not under § 954a.