National Endowment for the Humanities

That work has largely been made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities, a small, underfunded government agency gutted by President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency.

As the congressional legislation creating the National Endowment for the Humanities articulated, the federal government has a “necessary and appropriate” role “to help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry but also the material conditions” facilitating humanistic inquiry.

These are just a few of the programs at risk following the Department of Government Efficiency’s drastic decision last week to rescind more than 1,000 grants that had been awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

That top-down pressure, coupled with ongoing cuts to funding streams from the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Institute of Museum and Library Services, leaves the Smithsonian and other museums vulnerable, Walker added.

“There’s a line item in National Endowment for the Humanities budget called the federal state partnership.”