Threats to freedom of expression remain the most troubling issue of the last decade. Not since the 1950s has the country’s cultural community experienced such a constant barrage of censorship. Until late 1999, the artists and arts groups of New York City had been largely spared such attacks from local political and civic leadership.

In 1999 the Brooklyn Museum of Art opened an exhibit entitled “Sensation,” which featured the works of young British artists. Included in the show was a work by Chris Offili, an artist of Haitian Catholic heritage, which incorporated elephant dung and a collage of genitalia cut from magazines as part of a depiction of the Virgin Mary. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani found Offili’s materials offensive instead of celebratory, as the artist intended. He began proceedings to evict the institution from the building it leases from the city and to withhold funding appropriated in the City's budget for the museum.

In response to this flagrant disregard of the Museum’s First Amendment rights, the New York City Arts Coalition took a prominent leadership role in defense of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. A petition was sent to Mayor Giuliani within a few days of his public objections, signed by over two hundred representatives of New York City arts organizations in protest of his act of censorship. An amicus brief was also coordinated with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and filed on behalf of numerous arts groups. Eventually, the Brooklyn Museum prevailed in federal court, but the event was a sobering experience for the New York City arts community.

This direct challenge to the notion that a public space is precisely where controversial ideas can, and must be, freely debated was re-born in the spring of 2001 with the appointment by then Mayor Giuliani of what the press refered to as the “Decency Commission.” The latter essentially ended when Mayor Giuliani left office.

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