14 Years After Brooklyn Museum v. NYC: Mayoral Candidate Joe Lhota Says He Now Understands the First Amendment

May 13, 2013

Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota speaks out about his role in the 1999 Brooklyn Museum v. NYC fiasco.

Joe Lhota, NYC mayoral hopeful, is facing tough questions about his involvement in the dispute between the Brooklyn Museum and the Guilani administration in 1999.  As Deputy Mayor, Lhota spear-headed the campaign to close the Brooklyn Museum and cut it’s funding after Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary went on display.
In March of 1999 the Brooklyn Museum Board of Directors voted to keep the work on show and Lhota (in attendance as the mayor’s representative) announced that as punishment the City would withhold funding of $500,000. The museum took the City to court.
In a deposition he gave on October 7, 1999 in the case Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences v. The City of New York and Rudolph W. Giulani, Lhota stated that the museum’s lease with the City required that the museum be free to all visitors, and can only charge admission with permission from the mayor.  For this reason, he argued, the City had the right to close the museum and refuse it’s funding.

Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary, 1996.

The banter back and forth between Susan Buckley, attorney for the museum, and Lhota reveals that the City had misinformation and misinterpreted the information they had.  Lhota admits several times that he did not read entire statutes or documents, but only portions.  When asked why Lhota failed to attach legal references to his affidavit he responded: “I have not read them fully so I’m not sure I’d consider attaching something I hadn’t read.”

In November 1999, Judge Nina Gershon ruled that the city violated the First Amendment.  Interestingly, she noted that Lhota’s testimony convinced her that the city or mayor did not have “veto power over the museum’s decisions as to what to display.”  The museum settled for $5.8 million.