1981 attempts to abolish Upon entering office in 1981, the incoming
Ronald Reagan administration intended to push Congress to abolish the NEA completely over a three-year period. Reagan's first director of the Office of Management and Budget,
David A. Stockman, thought the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities were "good [departments] to simply bring to a halt because they went too far, and they would be easy to defeat." Another proposal would have halved the arts endowment budget. However, these plans were abandoned when the President's special task force on the arts and humanities, which included close Reagan allies such as conservatives
Charlton Heston and
Joseph Coors, discovered "the needs involved and benefits of past assistance," concluding that continued federal support was important. Frank Hodsoll became the chairman of the NEA in 1981, and while the department's budget decreased from $158.8 million in 1981 to $143.5 million, by 1989 it was $169.1 million, the highest it had ever been.
1989 objections In 1989,
Donald Wildmon of the
American Family Association held a press conference attacking what he called "anti-Christian bigotry," in an exhibition by photographer
Andres Serrano. The work at the center of the controversy was
Piss Christ, a photo of a plastic
crucifix submerged in a vial of an amber fluid described by the artist as his own urine.
Republican Senators
Jesse Helms and
Al D'Amato began to rally against the NEA, and expanded the attack to include other artists. Prominent conservative Christian figures including
Pat Robertson of
The 700 Club and
Pat Buchanan joined the attacks. Republican representative
Dick Armey, an opponent of federal arts funding, began to attack a planned exhibition of photographs by
Robert Mapplethorpe at the
Corcoran Museum of Art that was to receive NEA support. On June 12, 1989, The Corcoran cancelled the Mapplethorpe exhibition, saying that it did not want to "adversely affect the NEA's congressional appropriations." The
Washington Project for the Arts later hosted the Mapplethorpe show. The cancellation was highly criticized and in September 1989, the Director of the Corcoran gallery, Christina Orr-Cahill, issued a formal statement of apology saying, "The Corcoran Gallery of Art in attempting to defuse the NEA funding controversy by removing itself from the political spotlight, has instead found itself in the center of controversy. By withdrawing from the Mapplethorpe exhibition, we, the board of trustees and the director, have inadvertently offended many members of the arts community which we deeply regret. Our course in the future will be to support art, artists and freedom of expression."
Democratic representative
Pat Williams, chairman of the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over the NEA reauthorization, partnered with Republican
Tom Coleman to formulate a compromise bill to save the Endowment. The Williams-Coleman substitute increased funding to states arts councils for new programs to expand access to the arts in rural and inner city areas, leave the obscenity determination to the courts, and altered the composition of the review panels to increase diversity of representation and eradicate the possibility of conflicts of interest. After fierce debate, the language embodied in the Williams-Coleman substitute prevailed and subsequently became law. Though this controversy inspired congressional debate about appropriations to the NEA, including proposed restrictions on the content of NEA-supported work and their grantmaking guidelines, efforts to defund the NEA failed.
1990 performance artists vetoed Conservative media continued to attack individual artists whose NEA-supported work was deemed controversial. The "NEA Four",
Karen Finley,
Tim Miller,
John Fleck, and
Holly Hughes, were performance artists whose proposed grants from the United States government's National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) were vetoed by
John Frohnmayer in June 1990. Grants were overtly vetoed on the basis of subject matter after the artists had successfully passed through a
peer review process. The artists won their case in court in 1993 and were awarded amounts equal to the grant money in question, though the case would make its way to the
United States Supreme Court in
National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley. The case centered on subsection (d)(1) of which provides that the NEA Chairperson shall ensure that artistic excellence and artistic merit are the criteria by which applications are judged. The court ruled in , that Section 954(d)(1) is facially valid, as it neither inherently interferes with First Amendment rights nor violates constitutional vagueness principles.
1995–1997 congressional attacks The
1994 midterm elections cleared the way for House Speaker
Newt Gingrich to lead a renewed attack on the NEA. Gingrich had called for the NEA to be eliminated along with the
National Endowment for the Humanities and the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting. While some in Congress attacked the funding of controversial artists, others argued the endowment was wasteful and elitist. However, despite massive budget cutbacks and the end of grants to individual artists, Gingrich ultimately failed in his push to eliminate the endowment.
2017-18 proposed defunding The budget outline submitted by then-president
Donald Trump on March 16, 2017, to Congress would have eliminated all funding for the program. Congress approved a budget that retained NEA funding. The White House budget proposed for fiscal year 2018 again called for elimination of funding, but Congress retained the funding for another year.
2025 Trump administration restrictions In 2025, the NEA imposed restrictions on federal grant applications to comply with
President Trump's executive orders
14151 and
14168, barring federal funds for programs focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (
DEI) or used to "promote gender ideology". In response, over 400 artists submitted a letter asking the NEA to reverse these changes. On March 6th
Rhode Island Latino Arts, the
Theater Offensive,
National Queer Theater, and
Theater Communications Group sued the NEA, with the
American Civil Liberties Union, challenging the requirement to not promote "gender ideology" to apply for NEA grants. On May 3, 2025, several dozen arts organizations were notified that their grant offers had been terminated, as they did not align with the administration's new priorities. The notifications came on the same day that Trump proposed eliminating the NEA and several other federal agencies. ==Chairpersons==