The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics (VLC) today announce Cultural Freedom Demands Collective Courage: A Nation-Wide Statement of Values and Principles for the Field of Arts and Culture (The Statement), a months-long collective mobilization initiative in the face of more than $27 million in NEA grant terminations as well as increasingly urgent concern that social and governmental pressures are leading to preemptive institutional compliance with government interests, and that artistic and intellectual freedom in the United States is currently under serious threat. Upon its publication, the Statement has more than 275 individuals signatories working across the art and culture sector as well as over 150 arts organizations ranging from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council to the Alabama Arts Alliance, from Studio in the Woods in New Orleans to the Big Car Collective in Indianapolis, from the Japanese American National Museum in LA to Powerhouse Arts in NYC, as well as the College Art Association, the Alliance of American Museums and the American chapter of the International Association of Art Critics.

In May 2025, NCAC and the VLC convened a group of cultural leaders to assess needs and develop strategies in response to present threats to artistic and curatorial freedom and institutional independence.  This meeting led to a call to action for an alliance of institutions and individuals working across the cultural sector to unite behind shared values.  A subset of the group drafted The Statement articulating a set of foundational principles and shared values that unite America’s diverse arts and cultural field.  The Statement reasserts the arts sector's commitment to retain programmatic independence and resist pressures of institutional self-censorship, which is the only way to ensure that future generations inherit robust cultural institutions that stimulate the imagination, engender free thinking, and incubate new futures.