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<\/a><\/p>\nRain falls on the National Endowment for the Humanities building (NEH) on April 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. The NEH has begun laying off staff after President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) February 11 executive order to reduce the federal workforce. (Kayla Bartkowski\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cAt a time when the specter of antisemitism has reemerged from the shadows, for our Government to deem a project about Jewish women disfavored because it centered on \u2018Jewish cultures\u2019 and \u2018female\u2019 voices is deeply troubling,\u201d wrote McMahon, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1998. She was referring specifically to a canceled \u201cproject on Jewish women subjected to slave labor during the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Appointees to DOGE, originally overseen by Elon Musk, swiftly overhauled multiple federal agencies in early 2025. That included the National Endowment for the Humanities, where DOGE personnel canceled a wide swath of grants by using the artificial-intelligence software ChatGPT to identify projects they deemed \u201cDEI\u201d \u2014 shorthand for diversity, equity and inclusion.<\/p>\n
A lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and a consortium of scholarly groups found during court proceedings that many Jewish grants were classified as \u201cDEI\u201d under DOGE\u2019s rubric. At the same time, the NEH followed up its widespread grant cancellation by awarding its largest grant ever, $10.4 million, to the Tikvah Fund, a politically conservative Jewish group.<\/p>\n
McMahon ruled that DOGE engaged in illegal \u201cviewpoint discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPut simply, the Government terminated the grant because the grant sought to empower and amplify the voices of Jewish women who were victims of Nazi persecution,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe Government may have its reasons for disfavoring that perspective, but the First Amendment does not permit it to divest someone of a government benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several other terminated Jewish grants were mentioned in the judge\u2019s ruling, including projects to \u201crecover and analyze ancient writings attributed to Moses but excluded from the canonical Hebrew Bible\u201d; a short-fiction anthology by Jewish writers from the former Soviet Union; and multiple projects about Jewish women during the Holocaust. The ruling cited them alongside other cancelled grants focusing on Black Americans, Native Americans and Asian Americans.<\/p>\n
\u201cA grant funding the study of the experience of Jewish women during the Holocaust is not wasteful because it concerns Jewish women,\u201d McMahon wrote at one point. \u201cYet that is precisely how DOGE treated them \u2013 deeming grants wasteful because they related to Blacks, women, Jews, Asian Americans, and Indigenous people.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time, she noted that other grants for Jewish projects were not canceled, including one \u201cproposing to study \u2018Council of Jewish Federation records dating 1916 to 1999.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The ruling orders the NEH to reinstate the terminated grants.<\/p>\n
The NEH did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement to the Washington Post on Friday, the White House signaled that it planned to fight McMahon\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe district court\u2019s ruling is egregiously wrong,\u201d White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in the statement. \u201cIt conflicts with clear Supreme Court precedent, and provides yet another example of liberal judges trying to reinstate wasteful federal spending at the expense of the American taxpayer. The Trump Administration expects to [be] vindicated as this litigation proceeds.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Authors Guild celebrated the ruling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are gratified that justice was done,\u201d Authors Guild president Mary Rasenberger said in a statement, \u201cand we will be watching closely to make sure every one of these grants is restored.\u201d<\/p>\n