## Facts

- The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences operates the Brooklyn Museum on City-owned property under agreements associated with New York City’s “Designated Cultural Institutions” program, which included City operating and maintenance support.
- In 1999, the Museum presented a temporary exhibit, “Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection,” which included Chris Ofili’s *The Holy Virgin Mary*.
- Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani publicly denounced certain works in the exhibit as offensive and attacked the exhibit’s content.
- After the Mayor’s statements, the City withheld previously appropriated operating and maintenance funds from the Museum.
- The City also filed a state-court action seeking to terminate the Museum’s lease/occupancy and eject it from the premises.
- The Museum filed a federal action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging the City’s funding and eviction actions were retaliatory and constituted viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment.
- Defendants moved to dismiss or stay the federal case on abstention grounds; the Museum moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent funding withdrawal and eviction based on the exhibit’s content.

## Issues

1. Whether the federal court should abstain from hearing the Museum’s First Amendment claims because of the City’s later-filed state-court eviction proceeding.
2. Whether the Museum met the standards for a preliminary injunction by showing irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on its First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint-discrimination claims.

## Decision

- The court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss or stay on abstention grounds.
- The court granted the Museum’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
- The injunction barred the City and the Mayor from withholding previously appropriated operating and maintenance funds because of the exhibit’s content.
- The injunction also barred the City and the Mayor from pursuing eviction or other penalties as retaliation for, or based on disagreement with, the exhibit’s protected expression.

## Legal Principles

- Government action that withdraws or threatens to withdraw benefits to punish protected expression constitutes unconstitutional retaliation and viewpoint discrimination.
- The government’s discretion to structure or select arts funding does not include authority to penalize a speaker or institution by rescinding general operating support due to officials’ disapproval of the viewpoint expressed.
- Loss of First Amendment freedoms, even briefly, is irreparable harm for preliminary-injunction purposes.
- Younger abstention generally requires an ongoing state proceeding at the time the federal action is filed and a type of state interest traditionally warranting abstention; a later-filed, City-initiated eviction action did not justify abstention in this posture.

## Conclusion

The court held that the Museum was likely to succeed in showing that the City’s funding cutoff and eviction effort were retaliation for disfavored artistic expression, causing irreparable First Amendment harm, and it enjoined those actions while declining to abstain in favor of the later-filed state proceeding.


Brooklyn Inst. of Arts & Scis. v. City of N.Y., 64 F. Supp. 2d 184 (E.D.N.Y. 1999)