A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration\u2019s cancellation of more than 1,400 previously approved grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities violated the Constitution, while also creating a broad \u201cchilling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ruling, issued by Judge Colleen McMahon of Federal District Court in Manhattan, addressed two lawsuits brought by scholarly groups and individual grant recipients. The plaintiffs had argued that the cuts, carried out by Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency, violated the First Amendment and, by singling out work relating to particular groups, the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment.<\/p>\n
In her 143-page ruling<\/a>, Judge McMahon ordered the agency to rescind the cuts while saying the plaintiffs had suffered \u201cirreparable injury.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe injury is not limited to the loss of money,\u201d Judge McMahon said. \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 The humanities agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The lawsuits were filed last spring<\/a>, shortly after the Trump administration dismissed the agency\u2019s chairman and began making sweeping efforts to redirect it to President Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d cultural program.<\/p>\n In April 2025, a few weeks after DOGE arrived at the agency, its newly appointed acting chair, Michael McDonald, canceled most grants<\/a> approved during the Biden administration, telling recipients only that funding was being shifted \u201cin furtherance of the president\u2019s agenda.\u201d The cuts, totaling more than $100 million, threw organizations and projects across the country<\/a> into disarray, causing some to shut down entirely.<\/p>\n In the meantime, the agency began limiting some grant programs to projects relating to \u201cWestern civilization\u201d while also directing funds to Trump-backed projects<\/a> like the National Garden of American Heroes, a planned patriotic sculpture garden.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> that violated Mr. Trump\u2019s executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.<\/p>\n The two employees, Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox, also used keywords like \u201cL.G.B.T.Q.,\u201d \u201cBIPOC,\u201d \u201cequality,\u201d \u201cimmigration\u201d and \u201ccitizenship\u201d to draw up a list of the \u201ccraziest\u201d grants, which DOGE later publicized online<\/a>.<\/p>\n After publication of a New York Times article about the case, clips from videotaped depositions by Mr. Cavanaugh and Mr. Fox spread widely on social media, drawing harsh criticisms and sometimes ridicule for their attempts to explain why grants supporting a documentary about the Holocaust or a new museum HVAC system were deemed to be \u201cD.E.I.\u201d<\/p>\n Updated\u00a0<\/p>\n May 7, 2026, 11:18 p.m. ET<\/p>\n The men, both in their late 20s and recently recruited from jobs in technology and finance, said that they had no background in the humanities or government but that they believed in DOGE\u2019s broader goal of shrinking \u201cuseless small agencies,\u201d as Mr. Cavanaugh put it.<\/p>\n