President Donald Trump attends a meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police in the State Dinning Room of the White House, Thursday, June 5, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A federal judge on Friday halted attempts by the Trump administration to slash $175 million in National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants that were cut earlier this year by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), agreeing that the government did so “based on the recipients” perceived viewpoint, in an effort to drive such views out of the marketplace of ideas.”
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon issued the block in the Southern District of New York, writing in a 82-page order that the NEH cancellations would be temporarily stayed and any funds associated with the grants would be put on hold and not reobligated until a trial can be held.
McMahon, a Bill Clinton appointee, noted how DOGE and the Trump administration singled out and scrapped “high-quality projects and programs” earlier this year that “provide access to and preserve materials” and are important to “research, education, and public understanding of the humanities,” according to the judge. She said grants supporting historical research that “does not accord with the administration’s sanitized view of our history were axed” by DOGE.
In New York City for example, an NEH grant was stripped away from a Lehman College history professor who was writing a book on the “re-emergence of racist extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, during the 1970s and 1980s,” according to McMahon’s order.
“The evidence suggests that this occurred solely and simply as part of an effort to eliminate NEH funding for projects that focus on historical, literary or cultural issues that the current administration finds unpalatable,” McMahon said. “The spreadsheets reveal that numerous other grants having to do with American history — the ostensible new focus of NEH funding — were terminated, at least in part, for their connection to DEI-related topics.”
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
McMahon listed multiple examples of grants and subjects deemed unworthy of the NEH funding, including an award to fund an exhibit about the history of indigenous tribes in South Carolina; an award to create a documentary about the Reconstruction-era “Colfax Massacre of Black Americans” in Louisiana; and an award to process and digitize records of labor unions that were “founded in large part” by Jewish American immigrants.
Humanities groups filed a lawsuit in May against the government with members of historical, research and library associations to try and stop the funding cuts and changes after they came down in April.
McMahon said Friday that she believed the groups had rightfully accused the Trump administration of terminating the grants in an effort to punish people for their personal views. She noted how the groups said this was “most evident” by a citation in the government’s “termination notices” that claimed they were being carried out to combat “Radical Indoctrination” and “Radical … DEI Programs,” and further people’s belief in “Biological Truth.”
“First Amendment violations can come in many forms,” McMahon said of the Trump administration’s actions. “In short, the government cannot take away monies previously allocated in an effort to sanitize from our history matters that do not conform to some preferred, triumphalist version of the past.”
Classifying the effort as “unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination,” McMahon condemned the Trump administration for trying to “edit history” and “adopting a singular view” about American history and American exceptionalism when rewarding and terminating funds.
“The official motto of the United States of America is E pluribus unum — out of many, one,” McMahon concluded, noting how it “ill behooves” the government to “undermine that critically important aspect of our exceptionalism,” per her ruling.
“Out of many peoples, from many backgrounds, holding many different viewpoints, one nation,” she said. “Concepts that were deemed anathema for purposes of the Mass Termination — concepts like diversity (out of many), and inclusion (one nation) — are literally written into that motto. The American story simply cannot be told by suppressing all conversation about such matters, including especially conversation about past injustices that some, perhaps many, of us would rather forget.”
McMahon added, “For these reasons, the Authors Guild Plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim for preliminary injunctive relief on the ground that the mass termination was carried out in violation of the First Amendment.”
