A federal judge in New York has issued a preliminary injunction halting the mass termination of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants awarded to Authors Guild members. The court found that the cancellations may have violated the recipients’ First Amendment rights.
On Friday night, Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered a stay on the cancellations and barred the reallocation of associated funds until a full trial determines the legality of the decision.
In her ruling, Judge McMahon asserted that ‘defendants terminated the grants based on the recipients’ perceived viewpoint, in an effort to drive such views out of the marketplace of ideas’.
She pointed out that the termination notices referenced executive orders aimed at countering ‘Radical Indoctrination’, ‘Radical…DEI Programs’, and promoting ‘Biological Truth’, which she viewed as evidence of viewpoint-based discrimination.
Among the affected grants was one given to a professor researching the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and 1980s. McMahon noted that this project had been marked on an NEH spreadsheet titled ‘Copy of NEH Active Grants’ as related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), indicating a possible reason for its cancellation.
She added that other historical research projects were similarly flagged and revoked due to their association with DEI themes. “Far be it from this Court to deny the right of the Administration to focus NEH priorities on American history and exceptionalism as the year of our semiquincentennial approaches,” McMahon said. “Such refocusing is ordinarily a matter of agency discretion. But agency discretion does not include discretion to violate the First Amendment. Nor does not give the Government the right to edit history.”
The judge also observed that some grants appeared to have been rescinded solely because they were awarded during the Biden administration.
The Authors Guild filed a class action lawsuit in May against the NEH and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), alleging that grants lawfully allocated by Congress were unlawfully revoked. According to the complaint, DOGE’s actions brought the “core work of the humanities councils to a screeching halt.”
The lawsuit is part of a broader legal push by humanities, research, and library groups aiming to prevent cuts to funding and the dismantling of federal agencies tied to the arts and humanities.
While McMahon’s ruling temporarily restores the status quo, she clarified that her injunction is ‘narrowly tailored to maintain the status quo until we can decide whether Plaintiffs are entitled to ultimate relief. It does nothing more’.
However, not all plaintiffs received immediate relief. The judge denied a temporary injunction sought by the American Council of Learned Societies, which includes the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association, and dismissed several of their claims.
