578
Opinion of the Court
their complaint to challenge the provision as void for vagueness and impermissibly viewpoint based. First Amended Complaint ¶ 1.
The District Court denied the NEA's motion for judgment on the pleadings, 795 F. Supp. 1457, 1463-1468 (CD Cal. 1992), and, after discovery, the NEA agreed to settle the individual respondents' statutory and as-applied constitutional claims by paying the artists the amount of the vetoed grants, damages, and attorney's fees. See Stipulation and Settlement Agreement, 6 Record, Doc. No. 128, pp. 3-5.
The District Court then granted summary judgment in favor of respondents on their facial constitutional challenge to § 954(d)(1) and enjoined enforcement of the provision. See 795 F. Supp., at 1476. The court rejected the argument that the NEA could comply with § 954(d)(1) by structuring the grant selection process to provide for diverse advisory panels. Id., at 1471. The provision, the court stated, "fails adequately to notify applicants of what is required of them or to circumscribe NEA discretion." Id., at 1472. Reasoning that "the very nature of our pluralistic society is that there are an infinite number of values and beliefs, and correlatively, there may be no national 'general standards of decency,' " the court concluded that § 954(d)(1) "cannot be given effect consistent with the Fifth Amendment's due process requirement." Id., at 1471-1472 (citing Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 108-109 (1972)). Drawing an analogy between arts funding and public universities, the court further ruled that the First Amendment constrains the NEA's grant-making process, and that because § 954(d)(1) "clearly reaches a substantial amount of protected speech," it is impermissibly overbroad on its face. 795 F. Supp., at 1476. The Government did not seek a stay of the District Court's injunction, and consequently the NEA has not applied § 954(d)(1) since June 1992.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's ruling. 100 F. 3d 671 (CA9 1996). The major-
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