Non-Obscenity Pledges for Artists Dropped After Curbs Are Eased

The National Endowment for the Arts has quietly dropped a controversial requirement that grant recipients sign a non-obscenity pledge, now that Congress has voted to scrap explicit restrictions on the kinds of art eligible for federal subsidies.

The pledge, instituted by endowment Chairman John E. Frohnmayer late last year, has spawned three federal lawsuits charging that it violated the Constitution’s free speech guarantees.

At last count, 16 artists and arts institutions refused to sign the pledge and forfeited more than $318,000 in endowment grants.

The endowment made no formal announcement of Monday’s action, but agency officials confirmed that the pledge had been withdrawn and would not be required as a condition of receiving grants for the 1991 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. These officials would not permit use of their names.

Last year, Frohnmayer ordered all grant recipients to promise in writing that they would not violate a congressional ban against endowment support for works that “may be considered obscene.”

Endowment officials said they did not know if the pledge covering last year’s grant recipients would be repealed retroactively.

If last year’s grant recipients are still bound by the pledge, said constitutional lawyer Floyd Abrams, he will continue to press his lawsuit against the endowment on behalf of the New School for Social Research.

Shortly before it adjourned last weekend, Congress junked the obscenity ban it imposed on the arts endowment a year ago and voted instead to leave judgments of obscenity to the courts.