May 13, 2026 Advocacy Update

If you missed the great media coverage we enjoyed last week, I’m thrilled to say that the judge in the US District Court (Southern District of New York) issued a favorable ruling in our lawsuit on behalf of the NEH grants cancelled in April 2025 — on all counts. Her ruling affirms what Congress established over sixty years ago: the National Endowment for the Humanities exists to serve the American people, free from political interference, and its funds cannot be illegally withheld or its review processes ignored without legal consequence. Our suit was the first to document the activity of DOGE employees — individuals with no legal or professional authority who used ChatGPT to override the scholarly review process and interrupt the flow of knowledge.

This is a victory for the scholars, students, colleges, universities, associations, state humanities councils, libraries, and local organizations in all fifty states and territories whose work was abruptly disrupted last year. And we are not done — we are awaiting a decision on an appeal filed to fully restore the NEH’s staff, programs, and capacity to serve the public it was created to support. If you can, please consider supporting us. Litigation is expensive, and every gift counts.

This is also a victory for collaborative action. As I have frequently noted in other contexts, American higher education was designed for competition, with boards and leaders acculturated to pursue and reward single wins, not group ones. I am enormously proud that ACLS brought this suit together with the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association. May this success increase the status of collective action in our system.

In other news, we continue our alliance-building work across several fronts. Two weeks ago, generously hosted by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, we gathered 15 foundations including the Mellon Foundation, Art Bridges Foundation, Endeavor Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Ho Family Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John Templeton Foundation, Lever for Change, Lumina Foundation, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Schmidt Sciences, Spencer Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, and the William T. Grant Foundation. This was the fourth meeting of this group since December 2023. The group reiterated its support for humanistic inquiry, articulated shared concerns, and explored plans for outreach to other funders.

Stay tuned for an announcement about a new ACLS initiative that takes us into a space called “civic education,” and for updates on our Defending the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (DASSH) initiative.

What can you do this month? Circulate the news of our legal victory. Make sure friends and colleagues know that the viral videos of the two DOGE employees responsible for cutting the NEH grants are available thanks to our lawsuit.

Remind everyone you can that the humanities are intrinsically and instrumentally valuable. We cure ignorance, which means we cure the prejudice born of misogyny, racism, and cultural difference. We push back against the myth of TINA – “There is no alternative” – by preserving and studying the archive of experiments in social, economic, and political theory and practice. We serve all manner of curiosity and creativity, which sustains our humanity in a world overfull of economic pressures and algorithms.

We forge on, and we are grateful for your interest and support.

Joy