New ‘Decency’ Standard Set for Grant Panel : Arts: NEA is told to take into consideration the widest possible diversity of American cultural values.

The National Endowment for the Arts was told today to comply with Congress’ new “decency standard” by ensuring its grant-judging panels reflect the widest possible diversity of American cultural values.

This procedural solution was approved by members of the National Council on the Arts, the NEA’s presidentially appointed advisory body who met informally at a downtown hotel to discuss the implications of legislation Congress approved in October.

Council members effectively rejected a stronger alternative that would have required written or oral guidelines on decency for the NEA panels of outside experts who review applications for federal arts grants.

After the vote, endowment Chairman John E. Frohnmayer expressed approval of the council’s approach and said, “I’m not going to be the decency czar here.”

When it approved a $174-million budget for the arts endowment this year, Congress repealed a year-old obscenity ban and substituted a requirement that the NEA take “general standards of decency” into account when awarding federal grant money.

Both restrictions were prompted by conservative lawmakers’ criticism of NEA support for exhibitions of controversial works by the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and artist Andres Serrano that were denounced as obscene and blasphemous.

Though milder than the obscenity ban, the new decency standard has stirred emotional fire from some artists and arts supporters, who contend that it would also hamper freedom of expression.

In a statement read at today’s council meeting, members of the NEA panel on opera and musical theater declared their unanimous opposition to the decency standard and said they would disregard it.

“Standards of decency are subjective, indefinable and irrelevant to the consideration of artistic excellence, which is the primary concern of this panel and the National Endowment for the Arts,” their signed statement said.