A federal judge ruled that cancellations to more than 1,400 grants approved by the National Endowment for the Humanities by the Elon Musk-led Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) were unconstitutional.
Judge Colleen McMahon of Federal District Court in Manhattan ordered DOGE to rescind the cancellations in a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in two lawsuits contending that the cuts “violated the First Amendment and, by singling out work relating to particular groups, the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment,” according to the New York Times.
“The injury is not limited to the loss of money,” Judge McMahon wrote in her ruling. “It includes the disruption of protected expression, the interruption of ongoing research and publication, the cancellation or suspension of humanities programming, and the chilling effect caused by the government’s use of viewpoint-based and unauthorized criteria to terminate federal grants.”
The lawsuits were filed last year after the NEH’s chairman was dismissed and the agency was conscripted into President Donald Trump’s “America First” cultural campaign. Michael McDonald, who had been appointed as the agency’s acting chair, cut most of the grants previously awarded by the Biden administration.
“The cuts, totaling more than $100 million, threw organizations and projects across the country into disarray, causing some to shut down entirely,” according to the Times.
The Times added, “The lawsuits challenging the grant cuts drew wide attention this spring, when the plaintiffs filed documents showing that two DOGE employees had used ChatGPT to flag grants that violated Mr. Trump’s executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.”
Searches for keywords including “L.G.B.T.Q.,” “BIPOC,” “equality,” “immigration,” and “citizenship” were conducted by DOGE workers who “said that they had no background in the humanities or government but that they believed in DOGE’s broader goal of shrinking ‘useless small agencies.’’’
