Equal Justice USA has announced the “hard news” that it will shut down due to the Trump administration’s revocation of more than $3 million in federal grant funding.

“After dozens of meetings and hours of analysis and deliberations, the leadership of this organization … came to the difficult decision to wind down EJUSA’s operations,” CEO Jamila Hodge and board chair Lenny Noisette announced.

Lenny Noisette

The closure will affect nearly 50 employees and conclude more than 30 years of service aimed at breaking cycles of trauma through social, racial and criminal justice programs including dedicated work to end the death penalty and assist victims of crime.

“While the work is ending prematurely, it is not the end of the movement we’ve built together,” the statement said. “There is still so much more to do to move this country away from its reliance on a punishment framework that is racist and harmful to a system that is rooted in healing and true justice.”

EJUSA’s demise is the result of the Trump administration’s decision to withhold more than $800 million in Department of Justice grants to hundreds of organizations dedicated to violence and crime prevention.

Center for American Progress estimated more than 365 such awards were canceled in April in order to align federal grant making with the president’s political agenda: “As a result, critical services that states and localities rely on for their public safety are in jeopardy. Since taking office, the Trump administration has shown through its words and actions that slashing federal government investments is a priority without regard for what keeps people safe.”

The Department of Government Efficiency is responsible for many of the cuts, including the elimination of awards related to education, consumer protection, refugee resettlement, veteran’s services and behavioral treatment, the center said. “The DOJ’s recent grant terminations will have devastating impacts, forcing organizations to reduce services, scramble for new funding, cease operating or lay off workers.”

House Republicans got into the act in June with a DOGE Subcommittee hearing titled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild.”

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

“Radical, left-wing Democrats have bankrolled NGOs to advance their destructive agenda at the expense of American taxpayers,” said U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., chair of the subcommittee. “From the Green New Deal scam to facilitating mass illegal immigration and the resettlement of illegal aliens across the United States, NGOs have expended billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars in pursuit of agendas that most Americans oppose.”

Federal legislators “must also act to shut down the pipeline that keeps this money=laundering machine running,” she said. “Our DOGE subcommittee is going to expose the NGO scam and continue bringing long-overdue transparency and accountability to those who abuse taxpayer dollars.”

Trump targeted federal support for science and medicine in an Aug. 7 executive order that claims to seek to end the “offensive waste of tax dollars” in order to improve American life. The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health were singled out in the ideological directive suffused with culture-war rhetoric.

“Federal grants have funded drag shows in Ecuador, trained doctoral candidates in Critical Race Theory, and developed transgender-sexual-education programs,” the president claimed. The order connects NIH to the MAGA conspiracy theory that a lab in Wuhan, China, created and spread the coronavirus.

Placing presidential appointees in charge of the grant-making process will help end such abuses, according to the order. “In short, there is a strong need to strengthen oversight and coordination of, and to streamline, agency grantmaking to address these problems, prevent them from recurring, and ensure greater accountability for use of public funds more broadly.”

The Vera Institute of Justice described the DOGE hearing and continuing grant revocations as examples of the administration’s “war” on nonprofits. “Nonprofits have long done essential work to keep communities safe, but Trump has established a clear playbook to coerce and control them: strip their federal funding, investigate and intimidate them, and threaten their charitable tax status.”

In response, the National Council on Nonprofits recently launched “Nonprofits Get It Done,” an advertising campaign to educate Americans about the vital role the organizations play in serving the nation.

Diane Yentel

The campaign also urges public action to convince lawmakers to support nonprofits as vital to American society.

“Nonprofits are deeply embedded in the daily lives of every American. This campaign shines a light on the people and organizations doing the work and calls on all of us to support them,” President Diane Yentel said.

The effect of EJUSA’s closure can be measured by its accomplishments to date, including securing more than $4 million in community-based crime survivor support, helping abolish capital punishment in 11 states, supporting restorative justice efforts in 14 communities and advocating for policies that provided $500 million for public safety and mental health programs.

Shutting down was “an incredibly hard decision” necessitated by “a ruthless attack on life-saving work,” Hodge added. “While this chapter is ending, the work we have dedicated our professional lives to and the vision you’ve helped build is far from over.”

 

Related articles:

How the anti-DEI mandate will devastate many nonprofits | Analysis by Mark Wingfield

Nonprofit leaders lament House passage of ‘unconstitutional’ bill