Grant funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) appear to support two awards, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the agency’s annual $207 million budget: new york times the report said.
The Trump administration has previously canceled NEH grants approved by the previous Biden administration, laid off much of the agency’s staff, and most recently fired the academic committee that reviewed the grants.
One of the awards was given to the conservative Jewish education group Tikvah. The $10.4 million in funding will support the Jewish Civilization Project, which aims to combat anti-Semitism. The now-defunct advisory committee reportedly voted against the project because of vagueness in its application and concerns that it was too focused on publicity.
NEH Acting Chairman Michael McDonald “While combating the rise of anti-Semitism in the political and legal arenas is critical, the humanities also have a vital role to play in this fight. Tikvah is well-positioned to propose a comprehensive approach grounded in the best scholarship in the humanities to educate future leaders and the broader public about how the sinister and hate-filled attacks on Jews we are witnessing on America’s campuses and streets occur.” On a deeper level, it is also an attack on the very foundations of what makes the United States the remarkable country it is. ”
Efforts funded through the program include creating a Jewish Civilization curriculum for middle and high school students, expanding a high school scholarship program that offers Jewish Civilization workshops, developing college courses in Jewish liberal arts, offering public programs, supporting a series of scholarly books on Jewish resilience, and establishing a scholarship program for early career journalists writing about anti-Semitism and Jewish history and culture.
When the agency initially announced $34.8 million in funding for 97 projects on Aug. 1, Tikvah was not included, but was later added on Sept. 15.
Another recipient includes the University of Virginia, which received a $10 million grant for the “Celebrating Bi50th Anniversary of the United States of America: Creating and Sustaining Access to Primary Sources from the Founding Era/Early Republic” project. The funds will support editorial work on papers related to the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the Founding Era, as well as a new public website called ForgingUS that will provide a timeline and digital exhibit of these documents to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
In addition, McDonald’s announced hundreds of smaller discretionary “chair grants,” which can also be awarded without academic review.
Four of the grants have been awarded, but the names of the recipients have not been disclosed. One project received $30,000, titled “Meritocracy and Equality: Critical Race Theory and the Declaration of Independence in DEI”
In a letter to McDonough this week, Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, the top Democrat on the congressional subcommittee responsible for endowments, decried the recent changes, writing, “It has become increasingly clear that the agency’s ability to make appropriations has been severely compromised.”
She said awarding such large sums of money without academic review was an “irresponsible way of rewarding taxpayer dollars.” Pingree then requested a meeting on the matter and listed several issues and concerns related to the agency’s layoffs, layoff review boards and budget allocations.
She concluded her letter with a look of dismay: “I am deeply concerned about the rapid destruction of NEH and am committed to ensuring that NEH can once again implement the rigorous grantee selection process that it has successfully done since its founding in 1965. The top priority is to undo the damage to the agency and rebuild the integrity of NEH. Communities across the country depend on it.”
