Roughly 100 staff on the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), round two-thirds of the workforce, have been laid off on 10 June, when the Trump administration’s “discount in drive” initiative went into impact. The information comes from NEH’s union, the American Federation of Authorities Workers Native 3403. Fewer than 60 staff are anticipated to stay at NEH.
“A serious company restructuring is underway with out the suitable planning wanted to make sure the continuity of operations,” the union stated in an announcement. “These drastic adjustments… signify an existential menace to these establishments and people who depend on assist from NEH to analysis, protect and interpret our shared heritage.”
NEH, which oversees a $207m funds to fund humanities programmes in all 50 states, cancelled greater than 1,000 of its grants in early April, sending regional humanities councils all around the nation into panic as their budgets have been slashed in a single day. The cuts impressed a spate of high-profile lawsuits supposed to stall Trump’s radical restructuring of the federal authorities. Establishments have appealed the cuts en masse. NEH has supported public historical past, library, museum and academic programmes within the US since its founding in 1965 to the tune of greater than $6bn.
The company additionally introduced that it’s going to supply solely half of its typical endowment alternatives, as a substitute redirecting sources to Trump’s “Backyard of Heroes” venture, which can supply particular person artists as much as $600,000 to make life-size statues of a complete of 250 American luminaries. The opening of the Backyard of Heroes, which has but to announce a location, is scheduled to coincide with the US’s semiquincentennial subsequent yr, commemorating the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
NEH’s union addressed this re-prioritisation in its assertion, saying: “It’s absurd to suppose that grant {dollars} that have been getting used to do issues like publish President George Washington’s writings, restore Mark Twain’s artefacts and assist civics training are as a substitute being directed to fee statues. Whereas NEH employees have the experience to assist present historic context about these people and their impression, commissioning the artworks falls effectively exterior of the company’s purview. Historical past is just not one thing that may be set in stone.”
Trump’s administration has axed NEH funding for quite a lot of causes that the Division of Authorities Effectivity (Doge) deems “unpatriotic”, together with Indigenous and Hispanic-serving establishments and coaching for kindergarten academics.
