Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 19:43:58 +0200 (CEST)
From: Heiko Recktenwald <uzs106-AT-ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
Subject: Sensation.



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Settlement in NYC Museum Flap

   By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer
   
   NEW YORK (AP) -- The city and the Brooklyn Museum of Art have reached
   a truce in a heated six-month legal battle sparked by an exhibit
   featuring a dung-decorated painting of the Virgin Mary.
   
   In a settlement signed Monday and approved by U.S. District Judge Nina
   Gershon, both sides agreed to drop dueling lawsuits over the
   ''Sensation'' exhibit and pay their own legal fees.
   
   The judge specifically barred Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the city from
   inflicting ''any punishment, retaliation, discrimination or sanction
   of any kind'' against the museum.
   
   The deal also commits the city to spend $5.8 million over two years
   for a museum renovation project.
   
   The settlement came six months after Giuliani -- calling the painting
   ''sick'' -- froze an annual $7.2 million operating subsidy for the
   museum, then sued in state court to evict it from its city-owned site.
   
   The judge declared the sanctions unconstitutional late last year in a
   preliminary order restoring funding. The mayor refused to back down
   and appealed her decision.
   
   ''Today, Mayor Giuliani has agreed that the preliminary injunction
   that he ridiculed a few months ago will become permanent,'' museum
   attorney Floyd Abrams said at a news conference.
   
   Giuliani, who had been scheduled to be deposed in the case next week,
   was meeting with Republican leaders in Albany and raising funds in
   Cleveland for his U.S. Senate bid and had no immediate response.
   
   Corporation Counsel Michael Hess insisted the administration was
   ''very gratified'' with the settlement. ''We felt at this time that it
   was time to end the hostilities on both sides,'' he said.
   
   Museum officials, meanwhile, portrayed the agreement as a resounding
   victory for the museum -- and for free speech. Abrams characterized
   the City Hall offensive as ''one of the most dangerous assaults on the
   First Amendment'' that he had seen as a veteran constitutional lawyer.
   
   ^------   
   On the Net: http://www.brooklynart.org
   
   AP-NY-03-28-00 0620EST<
   
   Copyright (c) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
   not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
   
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        03/28/2000



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