On June 10, the Trump administration laid off an estimated 100 staff on the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as a part of a “discount in power,” in accordance with USA Today. Since then, about two-thirds of the group’s staff have misplaced their jobs. Fewer than 60 staff are thought to stay on the authorities company.
“A serious company restructuring is underway with out the suitable planning wanted to make sure the continuity of operations,” the NEH’s union, the American Federation of Authorities Workers Native 3403, stated in an announcement. “These drastic modifications … symbolize an existential risk to these establishments and people who depend on help from NEH to analysis, protect, and interpret our shared heritage.”
Based in 1965, the NEH has awarded greater than $6 billion in grants to museums, historic websites, universities, libraries, and associated organizations.
Cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) already halted all remaining funding to the NEH for the 2025 fiscal 12 months. DOGE additionally reduce $65 million from the NEH’s general $210 million price range and tried to fireplace roughly 65 % of its employees. These funds have as an alternative been funneled into the creation of President Donald Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes, amongst other projects.
A lawsuit blocked the deliberate “discount in power” on the NEH, however the brand new layoffs weren’t introduced on the time of that case.
“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 artifacts and help civics training are as an alternative being directed to fee statues. Whereas NEH employees have the experience to assist present historic context about these people and their affect, commissioning the artworks falls effectively exterior of the company’s purview. Historical past just isn’t one thing that may be set in stone”, the NEH’s union instructed the Art Newspaper.
A number of organizes have filed lawsuits towards the NEH, in search of to halt what some have described because the group’s “dismantling.” The image appears to be like to solely worsen subsequent 12 months: a proposed 2026 federal price range features a plan to eliminate the NEH, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
A Reuters assessment of presidency company departures discovered that they’ve been reduce by practically 12 %, with 260,000 of the two.3 million federal civilian workforce having been laid off to date.
The gutting of federal businesses continues amid an ongoing feud between President Trump and former head of DOGE Elon Musk, who instructed the Washington Post, “The federal paperwork scenario is way worse than I noticed.”
