[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2200924488.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tA 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.<\/p>\n
\n\tJudge 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 \u201cviolated the First Amendment and, by singling out work relating to particular groups, the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment,\u201d according to the New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe injury is not limited to the loss of money,\u201d Judge McMahon wrote in her ruling. \u201cIt 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\u2019s use of viewpoint-based and unauthorized criteria to terminate federal grants.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe lawsuits were filed last year after the NEH\u2019s chairman was dismissed and the agency was conscripted into President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d cultural campaign. Michael McDonald, who had been appointed as the agency\u2019s acting chair, cut most of the grants previously awarded by the Biden administration.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe cuts, totaling more than $100 million, threw organizations and projects\u00a0across the country\u00a0into disarray, causing some to shut down entirely,\u201d according to the Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Times<\/em> added, \u201cThe lawsuits challenging the grant cuts drew wide attention this spring, when the plaintiffs filed documents showing that two DOGE employees\u00a0had used ChatGPT to flag grants\u00a0that violated Mr. Trump\u2019s executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSearches for keywords including \u201cL.G.B.T.Q.,\u201d \u201cBIPOC,\u201d \u201cequality,\u201d \u201cimmigration,\u201d and \u201ccitizenship\u201d were conducted by DOGE workers who \u201csaid that they had no background in the humanities or government but that they believed in DOGE\u2019s broader goal of shrinking \u2018useless small agencies.\u2019\u2019\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/doge-cuts-neh-unconstitutional-1234784710\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2200924488.jpg?w=1024″] 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1926330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1926330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1926330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1926330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1926330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}