The Communications Director at the National Endowment for the Arts resigned Thursday, under fire for leading a conference call in which he pushed participants to create work that supported President Barack Obama’s agenda.

"This afternoon, Yosi Sergant submitted his resignation from the National Endowment for the Arts. His resignation has been accepted and is effective immediately,” the NEA said in a brief statement.

At the same time, the White House issued new guidelines to prevent any future calls from spilling into prohibited political advocacy, reinforcing the point in meetings with chiefs of staff from executive branch agencies.

The controversy stems from an Aug. 10 conference call with arts organizations that was put together by the NEA, the White Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve, the volunteer service program backed by the First Lady. Officials said the call was intended to organize support for service projects.

“On August 10th,  the National Endowment for the Arts participated in a call with arts organizations to inform them of the president's call to national service,” the NEA said in a later statement. “The White House office of public engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects.

“This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false. The NEA regularly does outreach to various organizations to inform of the work we are doing and the resources available to them."

However, in his e-mail setting up the call, Sergant had said it was aimed at “a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda - health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”

Afterward, one of the roughly 75 participants on the call, Patrick Courrielche, wrote that the call was an effort to drum up arts support for Obama’s agenda, an effort he found offensive.

“The National Endowment for the Arts was steering the art community toward creating art on the very issues that are currently under contentious national debate; those being health care reform and cap-and-trade legislation,” he wrote. 

“We were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues,” he added later. “Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to `shape the lives’ of those around us…..The making of a machine appeared to be in its infancy, initiated by the NEA, to corral artists to address specific issues. This function was not the original intention for creating the National Endowment for the Arts.”

The White House Thursday insisted that it was all a mistake, not a deliberate effort to use the NEA to drum up organized support for the president’s agenda.

“Though we have made clear that the call was made with the best of intentions and we believe public engagement is an appropriate and vital part of effective governmental functioning, certain comments on the call raised appearance issues that troubled some participants,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said.

“Accordingly, we are now issuing this memo as part of our ongoing effort to make our guidelines as clear as possible and we will be conducting further training sessions and personal visits with staff here to make sure the message gets across.”