Newport Museum Seeks Injunction Against NEA

The Newport Harbor Art Museum went into federal court Wednesday seeking an injunction against the National Endowment for the Arts’ requirement that grant recipients certify they will not produce or exhibit obscene work.

The NEA’s anti-obscenity provision “represents a form of government censorship that infringes on the freedom of the creative process inherent in all art,” said museum president Thomas H. Nielsen in a prepared statement.

The museum, which has been awarded four 1990 NEA grants totaling $100,000, filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. It names as defendants the NEA and its chairman, John E. Frohnmayer.

Unlike at least a dozen arts organizations across the country, however, the museum has not refused the grants, but instead hopes to win the suit, then accept the funds without having to take what critics have likened to a McCarthy-era anti-obscenity oath.

If the suit fails, however, “We will not execute the certification requirement,” even if that results in forfeiture of the grants, said museum trustee James V. Selna, an attorney for the law firm O’Melveny & Myers, which is representing the museum.

Newport Harbor officials said they have not returned the NEA’s grant-acceptance forms, which require recipients to agree to the anti-obscenity language.

No hearing has been set in the court action. The endowment makes no comment on pending litigation, a spokeswoman said.

The suit is similar to those filed by the New School for Social Research in New York City and choreographer Bella Lewitzky, head of the Los Angeles-based modern dance company that bears her name. All three call for a court order barring the NEA from using the obscenity certification on grounds it violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.

Since 1972, the small but nationally respected contemporary art museum in Newport Beach has received 56 NEA grants totaling $1.3 million, according to the suit.