New York, NY — U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon issued a ruling on Friday that temporarily blocks the Trump administration’s decision to cut $175 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which were previously canceled by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The judge’s ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed by humanities groups against the government after it slashed these grants earlier this year.
A Blow to Historical Research
Judge McMahon agreed with plaintiffs who claimed that the Trump administration canceled these grants based on the perceived viewpoints of the recipients.
She stated that these actions were aimed at driving certain historical views out of the “marketplace of ideas,” particularly those that do not align with the administration’s preferred narrative of American history.
According to McMahon, the government’s move to eliminate funding for high-quality humanities projects was a direct attempt to suppress historical, literary, and cultural works that challenge the administration’s sanitized view of history.
One notable example in McMahon’s ruling involved a Lehman College history professor in New York City, whose NEH grant was revoked for a project on the re-emergence of extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and 1980s.
This project was seen as addressing themes related to race and extremism, issues the administration reportedly found unpalatable.
Censorship and Political Influence
In her 82-page decision, McMahon condemned the Trump administration’s actions as viewpoint discrimination, emphasizing that the government should not wield its power to edit history in a way that aligns only with a narrow, triumphalist view of the nation’s past.
She also criticized the administration for using terms like “Radical Indoctrination” and “DEI Programs” in their notices of grant cancellations, further pointing to the First Amendment violations inherent in the government’s attempts to reshape historical narratives.
The Ruling and Its Impact
The $175 million in canceled NEH funding supported projects on racial justice, indigenous history, labor unions, and more. Some of the grants axed by the administration included:
A project focusing on the history of indigenous tribes in South Carolina.
A documentary about the Reconstruction-era “Colfax Massacre” in Louisiana, where Black Americans were massacred.
A project to digitize historical records of labor unions founded by Jewish American immigrants.
Judge McMahon’s ruling put the cancellation of these grants on hold, meaning the funding will be temporarily reinstated while the lawsuit moves forward.
She described the government’s actions as unconstitutional and emphasized that the American story cannot be told by suppressing conversations about past injustices.
A Broader Implication for American Exceptionalism
The judge concluded her order by invoking the U.S. motto: “E pluribus unum — out of many, one.” She argued that the government’s attempt to erase certain perspectives from American history undermines the very principles that make the nation exceptional, like diversity and inclusion.
“The American story simply cannot be told by suppressing all conversation about such matters, including especially conversation about past injustices that some, perhaps many, of us would rather forget,” McMahon wrote.
Next Steps
The ruling means the NEH grants that had been revoked earlier will not be reallocated until the case proceeds to trial. The humanities groups that filed the lawsuit have successfully demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their case, according to McMahon’s analysis.
This decision is a temporary win for those advocating for diversity of thought and academic freedom.
