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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 954', '§ 552', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 802', '§ 956', '§ 1134', '§ 2452', '§ 7382', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', 'art.\n7', '§ 951', '§ 951', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954', '§ 954']

National Endowment for Arts v. Finley (full text) :: 524 U.S. 569 (1998) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 524 › National Endowment for Arts v. Finley › Case
tJUSTICE GINSBURG joins all but Part II-B of this opinion.
When considering the NEA's appropriations for fiscal year 1990, Congress reacted to the controversy surrounding the
In the 1990 appropriations bill, Congress also agreed to create an Independent Commission of constitutional law scholars to review the NEA's grant-making procedures and assess the possibility of more focused standards for public arts funding. The Commission's report, issued in September 1990, concluded that there is no constitutional obligation to provide arts funding, but also recommended that the NEA rescind the certification requirement and cautioned against legislation setting forth any content restrictions. Instead, the Commission suggested procedural changes to enhance the role of advisory panels and a statutory reaffirmation of "the high place the nation accords to the fostering of mutual respect for the disparate beliefs and values among us." See Independent Commission, Report to Congress on the N a-
"(1) artistic excellence and artistic merit are the criteria by which applications are judged, taking into consideration general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public; and "(2) applications are consistent with the purposes of this section. Such regulations and procedures shall clearly indicate that obscenity is without artistic merit, is not protected speech, and shall not be funded."
The four individual respondents in this case, Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller, are performance artists who applied for NEA grants before § 954(d)(1) was enacted. An advisory panel recommended approval of respondents' projects, both initially and after receiving Frohnmayer's request to reconsider three of the applications. A majority of the Council subsequently recommended disapproval, and in June 1990, the NEA informed respondents that they had been denied funding. Respondents filed suit, alleging that the NEA had violated their First Amendment rights by rejecting the applications on political grounds, had failed to follow statutory procedures by basing the denial on criteria other than those set forth in the NEA's enabling statute, and had breached the confidentiality of their grant applications through the release of quotations to the press, in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U. S. C. § 552(a). Respondents sought restoration of the recommended grants or reconsideration of their applications, as well as damages for the alleged Privacy Act violations. When Congress enacted § 954(d)(1), respondents, now joined by the National Association of Artists' Organizations (NAAO), amended
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's ruling. 100 F.3d 671 (CA9 1996). The major-
The dissent asserted that the First Amendment protects artists' rights to express themselves as indecently and disrespectfully as they like, but does not compel the Government to fund that speech. Id., at 684 (opinion of Kleinfeld, J.). The challenged provision, the dissent contended, did not prohibit the NEA from funding indecent or offensive art, but merely required the agency to consider the "decency and respect" criteria in the grant selection process. Id., at 689690. Moreover, according to the dissent's reasoning, the vagueness principles applicable to the direct regulation of speech have no bearing on the selective award of prizes, and
Respondents argue that the provision is a paradigmatic example of viewpoint discrimination because it rejects any artistic speech that either fails to respect mainstream values or offends standards of decency. The premise of respondents' claim is that § 954(d)(1) constrains the agency's ability to fund certain categories of artistic expression. The NEA, however, reads the provision as merely hortatory, and contends that it stops well short of an absolute restriction. Section 954(d)(1) adds "considerations" to the grant-making process; it does not preclude awards to projects that might be deemed "indecent" or "disrespectful," nor place conditions on grants, or even specify that those factors must be given
Furthermore, like the plain language of § 954(d), the political context surrounding the adoption of the "decency and respect" clause is inconsistent with respondents' assertion that the provision compels the NEA to deny funding on the basis of viewpoint discriminatory criteria. The legislation was a bipartisan proposal introduced as a counterweight to amendments aimed at eliminating the NEA's funding or substantially constraining its grant-making authority. See, e. g., 136 Congo Rec. 28626, 28632, 28634 (1990). The Independent Commission had cautioned Congress against the adoption of distinct viewpoint-based standards for funding, and the Commission's report suggests that "additional criteria for selection, if any, should be incorporated as part of the selection process (perhaps as part of a definition of 'artistic excel-
That § 954(d)(1) admonishes the NEA merely to take "decency 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 discrimination. In cases where we have struck down legislation 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 "disfavored subjects," id., at 391, and suppressed "distinctive idea[s], conveyed by a distinctive message," id., at 393.
Respondents' claim that the provision is facially unconstitutional may be reduced to the argument that the criteria in § 954(d)(1) are sufficiently subjective that the agency could utilize them to engage in viewpoint discrimination. Given the varied interpretations of the criteria and the vague ex-
Permissible applications of the mandate to consider "respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public" are also apparent. In setting forth the purposes of the NEA, Congress explained that "[i]t is vital to a democracy to honor and preserve its multicultural artistic heritage."
We recognize, of course, that reference to these permissible applications would not alone be sufficient to sustain the statute against respondents' First Amendment challenge. But neither are we persuaded that, in other applications, the language of § 954(d)(1) itself will give rise to the suppression of protected expression. Any content-based considerations that may be taken into account in the grant-making process are a consequence of the nature of arts funding. The NEA has limited resources, and it must deny the majority of the grant applications that it receives, including many that propose "artistically excellent" projects. The agency may decide to fund particular projects for a wide variety of reasons, "such as the technical proficiency of the artist, the creativity of the work, the anticipated public interest in or appreciation of the work, the work's contemporary relevance, its educational value, its suitability for or appeal to special audiences (such as children or the disabled), its service to a rural or isolated community, or even simply that the work could increase public knowledge of an art form." Brief for Petitioners 32. As the dissent below noted, it would be "impossible to have a highly selective grant program without denying money to a large amount of constitutionally protected expression." 100 F. 3d, at 685 (opinion of Kleinfeld, J.). The "very assumption" of the NEA is that grants will be awarded according to the "artistic worth of competing applicants," and absolute neutrality is simply "inconceivable." Advo-
Respondents do not allege discrimination in any particular funding decision. (In fact, after filing suit to challenge § 954(d)(1), two of the individual respondents received NEA grants. See 4 Record, Doc. No. 57, Exh. 35 (Sept. 30, 1991, letters from the NEA informing respondents Hughes and Miller that they had been awarded Solo Performance The-
Finally, although the First Amendment certainly has application in the subsidy context, we note that the Government may allocate competitive funding according to criteria
The lower courts also erred in invalidating § 954(d)(1) as unconstitutionally vague. Under the First and Fifth Amendments, speakers are protected from arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of vague standards. See NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 432-433 (1963). The terms of the provision are undeniably opaque, and if they appeared in a criminal statute or regulatory scheme, they could raise substantial vagueness concerns. It is unlikely, however, that speakers will be compelled to steer too far clear of any "forbidden area" in the context of grants of this nature. Cf. Board of Airport Comm'rs of Los Angeles v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U. S. 569, 574 (1987) (facially invalidating a flat ban
In the context of selective subsidies, it is not always feasible for Congress to legislate with clarity. Indeed, if this statute is unconstitutionally vague, then so too are all Government programs awarding scholarships and grants on the basis of subjective criteria such as "excellence." See, e. g., 2 U. S. C. § 802 (establishing the Congressional Award Program to "promote initiative, achievement, and excellence among youths in the areas of public service, personal development, and physical and expedition fitness"); 20 U. S. C. § 956(c)(1) (providing funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities to promote "progress and scholarship in the humanities"); § 1134h(a) (authorizing the Secretary of Education to award fellowships to "students of superior ability selected on the basis of demonstrated achievement and exceptional promise"); 22 U. S. C. § 2452(a) (authorizing the award of Fulbright grants to "strengthen international cooperative relations"); 42 U. S. C. § 7382c (authorizing the Secretary of Energy to recognize teachers for "excellence in mathematics or science education"). To accept respondents' vagueness argument would be to call into question the constitutionality of these valuable Government programs and countless others like them.
This is so apparent that I am at a loss to understand what the Court has in mind (other than the gutting of the statute) when it speculates that the statute is merely "advisory." Ante, at 581. General standards of decency and respect for Americans' beliefs and values must (for the statute says that the Chairperson "shall ensure" this result) be taken into account, see, e. g., American Heritage Dictionary 402 (3d ed. 1992) ("consider ... [t]o take into account; bear in mind"), in evaluating all applications. This does not mean that those factors must always be dispositive, but it does mean that they must always be considered. The method of compliance proposed by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)selecting diverse review panels of artists and nonartists that reflect a wide range of geographic and cultural perspectives-is so obviously inadequate that it insults the intelligence. A diverse panel membership increases the odds that, if and when the panel takes the factors into account, it will reach an accurate assessment of what they demand. But it
I agree with the Court that § 954(d)(1) "imposes no categorical requirement," ante, at 581, in the sense that it does not require the denial of all applications that violate general standards of decency or exhibit disrespect for the diverse beliefs and values of Americans. Cf. § 954(d)(2) ("[O]bscenity ... shall not be funded"). But the factors need not be conclusive to be discriminatory. To the extent a particular applicant exhibits disrespect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public or fails to comport with general standards of decency, the likelihood that he will receive a grant diminishes. In other words, the presence of the "tak[e] into consideration" clause "cannot be regarded as mere surplusage; it means something," Potter v. United
1 If there is any uncertainty on the point, it relates only to the adjective, which is not at issue in the current discussion. That is, one might argue that the decency and respect factors constitute content discrimination rather than viewpoint discrimination, which would render them easier to uphold. Since I believe this statute must be upheld in either event, I pass over this conundrum and assume the worst.
More fundamentally, of course, all this legislative history has no valid claim upon our attention at all. It is a virtual certainty that very few of the Members of Congress who voted for this language both (1) knew of, and (2) agreed with, the various statements that the Court has culled from the Report of the Independent Commission and the floor debate (probably conducted on an almost empty floor). And it is wholly irrelevant that the statute was a "bipartisan proposal introduced as a counterweight" to an alternative proposal that would directly restrict funding on the basis of viewpoint. See ante, at 581-582. We do not judge statutes as
The Court devotes so much of its opinion to explaining why this statute means something other than what it says that it neglects to cite the constitutional text governing our analysis. The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." U. S. Const., Amdt. 1 (emphasis added). To abridge is "to contract, to diminish; to deprive of." T. Sheridan, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (6th ed. 1796). With the enactment of § 954(d)(1), Congress did not abridge the speech of those who disdain the beliefs and values of the American public, nor did it abridge indecent speech. Those who wish to create indecent and disrespectful art are as unconstrained now as they were before the enactment of this statute. Avant-garde artistes such as respondents remain
"Finley's controversial show, 'We Keep Our Victims Ready,' contains three segments. In the second segment, Finley visually recounts a sexual assault by stripping to the waist and smearing chocolate on her breasts and by using profanity to describe the assault. Holly Hughes' monologue 'World Without End' is a somewhat graphic recollection of the artist's realization of her lesbianism and reminiscence of her mother's sexuality. John Fleck, in his stage performance 'Blessed Are All the Little Fishes,' confronts alcoholism and Catholicism. During the course of the performance, Fleck appears dressed as a mermaid, urinates on the stage and creates an altar out of a toilet bowl by putting a photograph of Jesus Christ on the lid. Tim Miller derives his performance 'Some Golden States' from childhood experiences, from his life as a homosexual, and from the constant threat of AIDS. Miller uses vegetables in his performances to represent sexual symbols." Note, 48 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1545, 1546, n. 2 (1991) (citations omitted).
Profiles of Early American Culture 36 (1979). Surely the NEA itself is nothing less than an institutionalized discrimination against that point of view. Nonetheless, it is consti-
3 I suppose it would be unconstitutional for the government to give money to an organization devoted to the promotion of candidates nominated by the Republican Party-but it would be just as unconstitutional for the government itself to promote candidates nominated by the Republican Party, and I do not think that that unconstitutionality has anything to do with the First Amendment.
Finally, what is true of the First Amendment is also true of the constitutional rule against vague legislation: it has no application to funding. Insofar as it bears upon First Amendment concerns, the vagueness doctrine addresses the problems that arise from government regulation of expressive conduct, see Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 108-109 (1972), not government grant programs. In the former context, vagueness produces an abridgment of lawful speech; in the latter it produces, at worst, a waste of money. I cannot refrain from observing, however, that if the vagueness doctrine were applicable, the agency charged with making grants under a statutory standard of "artistic excellence"-and which has itself thought that standard met by everything from the playing of Beethoven to a depiction of
The decency and respect proviso mandates viewpointbased decisions in the disbursement of Government subsidies, and the Government has wholly failed to explain why the statute should be afforded an exemption from the funda-
"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397, 414 (1989). "[A]bove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message [or] its ideas," Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 95 (1972), which is to say that "[t]he principle of viewpoint neutrality ... underlies the First Amendment," Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 505 (1984). Because this principle applies not only to affirmative suppression of speech, but also to disqualification for government favors, Congress is generally not permitted to pivot discrimination against otherwise protected speech on the offensiveness or unacceptability of the views it expresses. See, e. g., Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819 (1995) (public university's student activities funds may not be disbursed on viewpoint-based terms); Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches
1 Art "may affect public attitudes and behavior in a variety of ways, ranging from direct espousal of a political or social doctrine to the subtle shaping of thought which characterizes all artistic expression." Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 501 (1952).
2 There is, of course, nothing whatsoever unconstitutional about this view as a general matter. Congress has no obligation to support artistic enterprises that many people detest. The First Amendment speaks up only when Congress decides to participate in the Nation's artistic life by legal regulation, as it does through a subsidy scheme like the NEA. If Congress does choose to spend public funds in this manner, it may not discriminate by viewpoint in deciding who gets the money.
I recognize, as the court explains, ante, at 581, that the amendment adding the decency and respect proviso was a bipartisan counterweight to more severe alternatives, and that some Members of Congress may have voted for it simply because it seemed the least among various evils. See, e. g., 136 Congo Rec. 28670 (1990) ("I am not happy with all aspects of the Williams-Coleman substitute .... It ... contains language concerning standards of decency that I find very troubling. But I applaud Mr. WILLIAMS for his efforts in achieving this compromise under very difficult circumstances .... I support the Williams-Coleman substitute"). Perhaps the proviso was the mildest alternative available, but that simply proves that the bipartisan push to reauthorize the NEA could succeed only by including at least some viewpoint-based limitations. An appreciation of alternatives does not alter the fact that Congress passed decency and respect restrictions, and it did so knowing and intending that those restrictions would prevent future controversies stemming from the NEA's funding of inflammatory art projects, by declaring the inflammatory to be disfavored for funding.
"Sexual expression which is indecent but not obscene is protected by the First Amendment," Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U. S. 115, 126 (1989), and except when protecting children from exposure to indecent material, see FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726 (1978), the First Amendment has never been read to allow the government to rove around imposing general standards of decency, see, e. g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844 (1997) (striking down on its face a statute that regulated "indecency" on the Internet). Because "the normal definition of 'indecent' ... refers to nonconformance with accepted standards of morality," FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, supra, at 740, restrictions turning on decency, especially those couched in terms of "general standards of decency," are quintessentially viewpoint based: they require discrimination on the basis of conformity with mainstream mores. The Government's contrary suggestion that the NEA's decency standards restrict only the "form, mode, or style" of artistic expression, not the underlying viewpoint or message, Brief for Petitioners 39-41, may be a tempting abstraction (and one not lacking in support, cf. Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U. S. 60, 83-84 (1983) (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment)). But here it suffices to realize that "form, mode, or style" are not subject to ab-
Just as self-evidently, a statute disfavoring speech that fails to respect America's "diverse beliefs and values" is the very model of viewpoint discrimination; it penalizes any view disrespectful to any belief or value espoused by someone in the American populace. Boiled down to its practical essence, the limitation obviously means that art that disrespects the ideology, opinions, or convictions of a significant segment of the American public is to be disfavored, whereas art that reinforces those values is not. After all, the whole point of the proviso was to make sure that works like Serrano's ostensibly blasphemous portrayal of Jesus would not be funded, see supra, at 603, while a reverent treatment, conventionally respectful of Christian sensibilities, would not run afoul of the law. Nothing could be more viewpoint based than that. Cf. Rosenberger, 515 U. S., at 831 (a statute targeting a "prohibited perspective, not the general subject matter" of religion is viewpoint based); United States v. Eichman, 496 U. S. 310, 317 (1990) (striking down anti-flag-
The Government notes that § 954(d) actually provides that "[i]n establishing ... regulations and procedures, the Chairperson [of the NEA] shall ensure that (1) artistic excellence and artistic merit are the criteria by which applications are judged, taking into consideration general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public." According to the Government, this language requires decency and respect to be considered not in judging applications, but in making regulations. If, then, the Chairperson takes decency and respect into consideration through regulations ensuring diverse panels, the statute is satisfied. But it would take a great act of will to find any plausibility in this reading. The reference to considering decency and respect occurs in the subparagraph speaking to the "criteria by which applications are judged," not in the preamble directing the Chairperson to adopt regulations; it is in judging applications that decency and respect are most obviously to be considered. It is no surprise, then, that the
The Government offers a variant of this argument in suggesting that even if the NEA must take decency and respect into account in the active review of applications, it may satisfy the statute by doing so in an indirect way through the natural behavior of diversely constituted panels. This, indeed, has apparently been the position of the Chairperson of the NEA since shortly after the legislation was first passed. But the problems with this position are obvious. First, it defies the statute's plain language to suggest that the NEA complies with the law merely by allowing decency and respect to have their way through the subconscious inclinations of panel members. "[T]aking into consideration" is a conscious activity. See Webster's New International Dictionary 2570 (2d ed. 1949) (defining "take into consideration" as "[t]o make allowance in judging for"); id., at 569 (defining "consideration" as the "[a]ct or process of considering; continuous and careful thought; examination; deliberation; attention"); id., at 568 (defining "consider" as "to think on with care ... to bear in mind"). Second, even assuming that diverse panel composition would produce a sufficient response to the proviso, that would merely mean that selection for decency and respect would occur derivatively through the inclinations of the panel members, instead of directly through the intentional application of the criteria; at the end of the day, the proviso would still serve its purpose to screen out offending artistic works, and it would still be unconstitutional. Finally, a less obvious but equally dispositive re-
A third try at avoiding constitutional problems is the Court's disclaimer of any constitutional issue here because "[§] 954(d)(1) adds 'considerations' to the grant-making process; it does not preclude awards to projects that might be deemed 'indecent' or 'disrespectful,' nor place conditions on grants, or even specify that those factors must be given any particular weight in reviewing an application." Ante, at 580-581. Since "§ 954(d)(1) admonishes the NEA merely to take 'decency and respect' into consideration," ante, at 582, not to make funding decisions specifically on those grounds, the Court sees no constitutional difficulty.
That is not a fair reading. Just as the statute cannot be read as anything but viewpoint based, or as requiring nothing more than diverse review panels, it cannot be read as tolerating awards to spread indecency or disrespect, so long as the review panel, the National Council on the Arts, and the Chairperson have given some thought to the offending qualities and decided to underwrite them anyway. That, after all, is presumably just what prompted the congressional outrage in the first place, and there was nothing naive about the Representative who said he voted for the bill because it does "not tolerate wasting Federal funds for sexually explicit photographs [or] sacrilegious works." 136 Congo Rec. 28676 (1990).
A second basic strand in the Court's treatment of today's question, see ante, at 585-587, and the heart of JUSTICE SCALIA'S, see ante, at 595-599, in effect assume that whether or not the statute mandates viewpoint discrimination, there is no constitutional issue here because government art subsidies fall within a zone of activity free from First Amendment restraints. The Government calls attention to the roles of government-as-speaker and government-as-buyer, in which the government is of course entitled to engage in view-
6 Here, the "communicative element inherent in the very act of funding itself," Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 892-893, n. 11 (1995) (SOUTER, J., dissenting), is an endorsement of the importance of the arts collectively, not an endorsement of the individual message espoused in a given work of art.
7 In Rust, "the government did not create a program to encourage private speech but instead used private speakers to transmit specific information pertaining to its own program. We recognized that when the government appropriates public funds to promote a particular policy of its own it is entitled to say what it wishes." Rosenberger, supra, at 833 (citing Rust, supra, at 194).
Rosenberger controls here. The NEA, like the student activities 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 future." § 951(3). The NEA's purpose is to "support new ideas" and "to help create and sustain ... a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry." §§ 951(10), (7); see also S. Rep. No. 300, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (1965) ("[T]he intent of this act should be the encouragement of free inquiry and expression"); H. R. Rep. No. 99-274, p. 13 (1985) (Committee Report accompanying bill to reauthorize and amend the NEA's governing statute) ("As the Preamble 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
9While criteria of "artistic excellence and artistic merit" may raise intractable issues about the identification of artistic worth, and could no doubt be used covertly to filter out unwanted ideas, there is nothing inherently viewpoint discriminatory about such merit-based criteria. We have noted before that an esthetic government goal is perfectly legitimate. See Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U. S. 490, 507-508 (1981) (plurality opinion). Decency and respect, on the other hand, are inherently and facially viewpoint based, and serve no legitimate and permissible end. The Court's assertion that the mere fact that grants must be awarded according to artistic merit precludes "absolute neutrality" on the part of the
10 JUSTICE SCALIA suggests that Rosenberger turned not on the distinction between government-as-speaker and government-as-facilitator-ofprivate-speech, but rather on the fact that "the government had established a limited public forum." Ante, at 599. Leaving aside the proper application of forum analysis to the NEA and its projects, I cannot agree that the holding of Rosenberger turned on characterizing its metaphorical forum as public in some degree. Like this case, Rosenberger involved viewpoint discrimination, and we have made it clear that such discrimination is impermissible in all forums, even nonpublic ones, Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788,806 (1985), where, by definition, the government has not made public property generally available to facilitate private speech, Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U. S. 37,46 (1983) (defining a nonpublic forum as "[p]ublic property which is not by tradition or designation a forum for public communication"). Accordingly, Rosenberger's brief allusion to forum analysis was in no way determinative of the Court's holding.
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 viewpoint discrimination. "The First Amendment presumptively 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). Because 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 Amendment. It is up to the Government to explain why a sphere 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.
In entertaining this challenge, the Court finds § 954(d)(1) constitutional on its face in part because there are "a number of indisputably constitutional applications" for both the "decency" and the "respect" criteria, ante, at 584, and it is hard to imagine "how 'decency' or 'respect' would bear on grant applications in categories such as funding for symphony orchestras," ante, at 583. There are circumstances in which we have rejected facial challenges for similar reasons. "A facial challenge to a legislative Act is, of course, the most difficult challenge to mount successfully, since the challenger
13 Cf. United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987) ("The fact that the Bail Reform Act might operate unconstitutionally under some conceivable set of circumstances is insufficient to render it wholly invalid, since
14 In placing such emphasis on the potential applicability of the decency criterion to educational programs, the Court neglects to point out the existence of § 954a, entitled "[a]ccess to the arts through support of education," which is concerned specifically with funding for arts education, especially 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 constitutionally 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.
15 The Court seemingly concedes that these isolated constitutional applications are in fact of little matter. For after speaking of specific applications that may be valid, the Court goes on to admit that these "would not alone be sufficient to sustain the statute." Ante, at 585. The Court nonetheless upholds the statute because it is not "persuaded that, in other applications, the language of § 954(d)(1) itself will give rise to the suppression of protected expression." Ibid. This conclusion appears to rest on some combination of (a) the Court's competition rationale as distinguishing Rosenberger and justifying the discrimination, (b) the Court's reading of the decency and respect proviso as something other than viewpoint based, and (c) the Court's treatment of "taking into consideration" as establishing no firm mandate subject to constitutional scrutiny. As already explained,
however, fair reading of the text and attention to case law foreclose reliance on any, let alone all, of these arguments.
Any chilling that results from imprecision in the drafting of standards (such as "artistic excellence and artistic merit") by which the Government awards scarce grants and scholarships is an inevitable and permissible consequence of distributing prizes on the basis of criteria dealing with a subject that defies exactness. The necessary imprecision of artisticmerit-based criteria justifies tolerating a degree of vagueness that might be intolerable when applying the First Amendment to attempts to regulate political discussion. Cf. Arkansas Ed. Television Comm'n V. Forbes, 523 U. S. 666, 694-695 (1998) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). My problem is not with the chilling that may naturally result from necessarily open standards; it is with the unacceptable chilling of "dangerous ideas," Speiser V. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 519 (1958), that naturally results from explicitly viewpoint-based standards.
A statute is permissible if it does not preclude speech but merely accounts for decency and respect...
The National Endowment for the Arts sponsored two controversial works of art, giving rise to formal...