Jason E. Kaplan
Adam Davis, executive director of Oregon Humanities, pictured last month.
A national federation has joined the suit to block the sudden, drastic cuts by the Trump White House.
The Oregon Humanities Council has sued to block proposed funding cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Last month, leaders at the NEH were informed the President Donald Trump sought to cut the agency’s budget by at least 80%.
The suit, filed in federal district court in Portland, asks a judge to declare the cuts unlawful and to compel the White House to provide the funding approved by Congress. It’s joined in the lawsuit by the Federation of State Humanities Councils. Oregon Humanities is represented in the case by attorneys with Portland-based Tonkon Torp LLP.
“We ask the Court to stop this imminent threat to our Nation’s historic and critical support of the humanities by restoring funding appropriated by Congress,” reads the lawsuit.
The target of the suit is billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a repurposed White House office formed during the Obama Administration.
According to the lawsuit, DOGE terminated all grants and funding for 56 state arts and humanities councils, which were created by federal statute and funded by Congress. It did so with “no reasoned analysis and with total disregard for the Congressionally mandated roles of councils: to ensure that humanities programs reach every part of the United States.
“We’ve tried to be a bridge between Washington, D.C., and every county and community in Oregon,” writes OH director Adam Davis in a statement to Oregon Business. “We work to provide opportunities for all Oregonians to think and talk together about our state and our nation. We’re looking forward to the restoration of the federal-state partnership that has meant so much to so many people here in Oregon and across the country.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities began funding humanities organizations around the country in 1965. Oregon Humanities was formed in 1971 to disperse NEH grants to local arts and humanities groups around the state. Since then, it has expanded its funding sources and mission though the federal government remains its largest revenue source, representing around 50% of its annual budget. Its latest NEH grant of $2.5 million runs from Nov. 2022 through Oct. 2027. Much of that has now been withdrawn by the federal government, according to Davis.
Today in Oregon, NEH funding funds humanities programs around the state including libraries in rural communities such as Burns, Newport and Forest Grove, youth-led conversations about mental health in Medford, storytelling projects led by Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland and the Oregon Humanities magazine, according to the suit.
In 2024, Congress appropriated $207 million to the National Endowment of the Humanities of which $65 million was distributed to Oregon Humanities and the other state councils.
Davis and other leaders in the Oregon arts and culture community met this month with Rep. Suzanne Bonamici to discuss a coordinated response to raft of sudden cuts from the federal government. Davis and others mentioned the “sliver” of the federal budget representing NEH funding; in April, saying NEH funding amounts to about $1 per person per year.
“I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of when it comes to encouraging our federal government to follow the Constitution. To respect the separation of powers. To live up to the commitments it’s already made. And to respect the will of Oregonians to see the tax money they’re paying come back to their state in ways they’re asking for,” Davis said. “Seems to me, there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of, and we should all be stepping up and asking for these very obvious things.”
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