Politics

Judge Rules DOGE’s Cancellation Of NEH Grants Was Unconstitutional

Published

1 hour ago

May 9, 2026

The Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants to scholars, writers, research groups and other organizations was unconstitutional, and the Department of Government Efficiency had no authority to end the funding, a federal judge in New York ruled on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan sided with The Authors Guild, several other groups and several people who had their grants canceled and sued DOGE and the National Endowment for the Humanities. McMahon permanently barred the administration from terminating the grants and criticized DOGE’s use of artificial intelligence in nixing the funding.

Government lawyers had argued that the cuts of more than 1,400 grants of congressionally approved funds were legal moves to implement President Donald Trump’s directives, eliminate grants associated with diversion, equity and inclusion and reduce discretionary spending under the administration’s priorities.

The White House and Department of Justice, which defended against the lawsuit, did not immediately return emails seeking comment Thursday evening. It was not immediately clear if an appeal was planned.

McMahon said the government violated the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection right, and DOGE did not have the lawful authority to cancel the grants. She wrote, for example, that it was “a textbook example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination” when officials canceled the grants based on DEI.

“The public interest favors permanent relief,” McMahon wrote in her ruling. “The public has a strong interest in ensuring that federal officials act within the bounds set by Congress and the Constitution.”

Several groups that sued the government, including the American Council of Learned Societies, American Historical Association and Modern Language Association, hailed the decision in a joint statement.

“This ruling in an important achievement in our effort to restore the NEH’s ability to fulfill the vital mission with which Congress charged it: helping to create and sustain ‘a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry’ through the humanities,” said Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association.

Yinka Ezekiel Onayemi, an attorney for the Authors Guild, called the grant cancellations “a direct assault on constitutional free speech and equal protection.”

“We’re pleased with the Court’s decision, which vindicates our clients: the brilliant academics, writers, and institutions doing work that is deeply important to our democracy,” Onayemi said in a statement. “It also reaffirms that Congress’s 60 year old commitment to the humanities cannot be dismantled by an overreaching executive.”

The judge scrutinized how government officials classified grant projects as DEI and used ChatGPT to target them for funding cuts. In one case, she said officials, using the AI platform, labeled as DEI an anthology titled “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union.” She also listed numerous other examples.

McMahon also rejected the government’s argument that there was no constitutional problem because any viewpoint classification was ChatGPT’s doing, and not the government’s.

“ChatGPT was the Government’s chosen instrument for purposes of this project, and DOGE’s use of AI to identify DEI-related material neither excuses presumptively unconstitutional conduct nor gives the Government carte blanche to engage in it,” she wrote.

The grant cancellations were announced in April 2025, three months after Trump issued an executive order titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” In February 2025, Trump issued another executive order implementing DOGE’s “cost efficiency initiative.”

Michael McDonald, then the acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, sent letters to grant recipients informing them that their grants were canceled.

In a letter to one organization on April 1, 2025, he wrote, “The NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.”

Many of the canceled grants were awarded during the Biden administration, and only about 40 grants awarded by that administration were spared from the cuts, the judge wrote.

McMahon wrote that while a new administration may pursue lawful funding priorities, “it has no license to suppress disfavored ideas.”

In a temporary block of the grant cancellations issued last year that raised First Amendment and other issues, the judge said the “defendants terminated the grants based on the recipients’ perceived viewpoint, in an effort to drive such views out of the marketplace of ideas.”

Politics

Americans say there’s too much money in politics — and it’s driving election outcomes

Published

3 hours ago

May 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Americans think cash rules more of the political system than it should — a concern that crosses party lines as midterm spending is projected to once again shatter records.

New results from The POLITICO Poll are stark: 72 percent of Americans say there is too much money in politics, with just 5 percent disagreeing. Across parties, majorities say billionaires wield outsized influence over U.S. politics and that special interest spending is a type of corruption that should be restricted, rather than protected as free speech. Nearly half of respondents say voters have too little power.

Outside money shows no sign of slowing. New groups tied to artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and other emerging industries are rapidly entering the political arena, pouring millions into competitive primaries to shape who makes it to Washington. Each of the last three midterm elections has set new spending records, and ad tracking firm AdImpact projects advertising spending will once again reach new heights, to the tune of $10.8 billion.

“This type of astronomical spending corrodes people’s faith in our system of government, and I think people are really looking for changes to take some of this outrageous amount of spending and rein it in,” said Michael Beckel, the Money in Politics Reform Director at Issue One, a nonprofit advocacy group.

The poll — conducted in partnership with Public First — suggests many Americans see that influence as coming at voters’ expense, raising concerns not just about fairness, but about the health of the democratic system itself.

Still, there was some partisan disagreement, with Democrats tending to hold the strongest views against money in politics. Non-voters, meanwhile, were more likely to respond “I don’t know” to these questions, which lowered the overall shares of Americans who are critical of money in politics, compared with Harris voters and Trump voters.

Here’s a look at where Americans stand, starting with a place of unified skepticism:

Americans overwhelmingly believe there is too much money in politics.

Cutting across party lines, nearly 3 out of 4 Americans agreed with the statement that “There is too much money in American politics,” while most others didn’t take a position.

They also see that money as powerful. A majority think it can shape election outcomes — with 39 percent saying money can outright buy results and another 34 percent saying it can influence but not buy them. That perception mirrors what’s already playing out in campaigns: wealthy donors and outside groups are pouring millions into competitive races, often through vehicles that can accept unlimited contributions and amplify a small group of voices.

There’s a partisan break in beliefs about how far that money can go. Trump voters lean toward saying people or organizations with a lot of money can influence elections without buying the outcomes, while Harris voters were more likely to say election outcomes can be bought.

Americans agree: Voters don’t have enough power.

When asked how much sway different groups have over politics, about half of respondents said voters have too little — far greater than the shares that said voters have either too much influence or the right amount.

Meanwhile, 6 in 10 say billionaires have too much influence over U.S. politics — a view that’s more widespread among Democrats, with 75 percent of Harris voters agreeing, compared with 55 percent of Trump voters. A sizable share of respondents also see political parties, special interest groups and foreign governments as overly influential, far outweighing the number of Americans saying those groups have too little influence.

Concern about special interest money runs particularly deep. Not only do two-thirds of Americans say there is too much of it flowing into U.S. politics, a majority (53 percent) view that money as corrupt and in need of stricter regulation, instead of following the conservative legal principle that it is an act of free speech to be protected. That includes 56 percent of Trump voters.

Money plays a major role in shaping elections, including in determining candidates’ ability to run advertising to get their message in front of voters, to hold campaign events and to hire staff. It can even shape who runs in the first place.

Americans know that money matters, expressing a broad skepticism about how elections are decided. A plurality believes the candidate with the most money — not the most popular positions — wins.

That view is far more common among Democrats: Over half of 2024 Harris voters say money is the deciding factor, compared with a little over a third of Trump voters.

Erin Doherty contributed reporting.