The building housing both the national arts endowment and the national endowment for the humanities.
Washington, DC: President Trump released a 2026 Budgetary proposal which includes, among many deep cuts to federal expenses, the wholesale of the national endowment for the arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as well as several other federal and regional cultural agencies.
We have already been here: in 2017 and 2018, the first Trump administration published budgetary proposals which included the elimination of these same entities, but they were kept thanks to the work of the arts defenders and the support of the Congress, including elected Republicans. This time, however, the Ministry of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) gave free brakes to examine and reduce federal expenses and a burst of decrees issued by the president who target specific organizations and programs – without mentioning the apparent reluctance of the congress to counter the president – this new threat of dismissal must be taken more seriously.
The NEA has been largely spared by direct fire from the new administration to date, at least in contrast to the NEH, which Its staff had radically reduced and underwent canceled subsidiesand the CPB, the target of A recent decree demanding that he stop funding PBS and NPR. The arts endowment was not entirely exempt from the interventions of the new administration: in February, New compliance directives He seemed to demand that candidates for granting consent to face Trump's anti-DEC and anti-trans decrees, and certify that their work did not promote Dei or “gender ideology”. The two restrictions were temporarily interrupted, the latter Thanks to a trial Directed by ACLU (and joined by Theater Communications Group, the publisher of this magazine), although a judge then judged that it belonged to the NEA to understand how to manage this requirement; They received a deadline of April 30.
The endowment respected this deadline this week A document updated Signed by the main advisor of NEA, Mary Anne Carter, who seems to try to divide the difference. He claims that the president's decree “obliges executive agencies to take all necessary measures, as allowed by the law, to ensure that agency funds are not used to promote gender ideology”, adding that “the NEA will implement the OE 14168 on a subsidy basis”. It takes pain to ensure that they “will not be required to certify that no federal fund is used to promote gender ideology” and “that there is no eligibility bar to submit a demand related to the promotion of gender ideology”. They add that the long -standing criteria of the agency for applications leave “no room for discrimination from point of view”.
So, how will the anti-trans-transplant order of the administration be applied? While Carter's letter reiterates the primacy of the standards of “artistic merit” and “artistic excellence”, it declares that by evaluating projects subsidizing, the president of the NEA can also take into account “in consideration the general standards of decency and respect for the various beliefs and values of the American public”.
The language on the “eligibility bar”, the “discrimination of point of view”, as well as the qualification “as the permit by law”, can all be read as responses to the challenge of aclu, which in part cited an objection of the first amendment to the implementation of the decree. An ACLU spokesperson has responded to the UA-conditionally updated standards. “Unless NEA clarifies otherwise,” they said, “this information does not eliminate the important concerns processed in our trial.”
Meanwhile, rumors have been swirling since last week that Doge visited the NEA last week and that the major doctorate changes are imminent. The beneficiaries are no less uncertain about their future: while the beneficiaries of subsidies of the financing cycle of last year who have not yet been reimbursed wonder when they will discover if their payments will come at all, the candidates who have requested the most recent financing cycle, for which the deadline was April 7, wait for the word of approval.
The chronology so far:
January 15: The prices of the NEA grant for the 2010 financial year were announcement. In the theater category, 148 subsidies were granted for a total of $ 3,730,000. In the musical theater, 29 subsidies were awarded for a total of $ 930,000.
January 20: Maria Rosario Jackson resigned As president of the NEA. Mary Anne Carter, who was president in 2019 under the previous Trump administration, is the current principal advisor.
FEBRUARY: When Details and applications from the NEA grant For the 201026 financial year, the NEA imposed a Certification requirement and financing prohibition In response to the order of President Trump prohibiting federal funding from everything that “promotes gender ideology”.
March 6: THE AcluTHE Aclu du Rhode Island,, David ColeAnd Lynette LabingerAclu-Ri cooperating lawyer, deposited a costume Before the Rhode Island District Court on behalf of artistic organizations which require funding from the NEA.
March 7: Just one day after the prosecution was deposited, the Nea temporarily canceled the certificate requirement and the prohibition of financing after filing the trial.
March 11: Original deadline for part 1 of subsidy requests for the next cycle.
March 14: The extension of the candidate Nea portal has opened its doors.
March 24: Original deadline for part 2 of subsidy requests for the next cycle.
April 4: The US District Court of Rhode Island refused to prevent the NEA from re -imposing a restriction on the financing of projects considered to promote “gender ideology”, even if they argued that the rule probably violates the first amendment.
April 7: The deadline for part 2 is closed.
April 30: The evaluation would be completed.
American theaterThe coverage of the NEA in the past year is here.
