National Endowment for the Humanities staff were on administrative leave on Thursday evening.
GRAEME SLOAN / SIPA USA via Reuters Connect
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GRAEME SLOAN / SIPA USA via Reuters Connect
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) staff were informed by e-mail on Thursday evening that they were placed on administrative leave paid with immediate effect. The news occurs two days after 56 councils of state sciences of the state and jurisdiction across the country received A letter that their NEH subsidies were dismissed.
The NEH did not respond to several requests for comments.
A senior NEH official, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, confirms at NPR only among the 145 staff members – 80% of the staff – placed on administrative leave are communications, program officers and administrators. The manager indicates that a team from the Government Ministry of Efficiency has visited the NEH offices in the past two weeks “, then reached pressure.”
Earlier this week, DOGE had told NEH staff that he would dismiss a substantial number of employees and reduce his grant programs, as reported for the first time by The New York Times.
Almost half of the NEH budget goes directly to the human sciences councils in each American state and jurisdiction. The endowment also supports museums, libraries, preservation, history and media projects thanks to a competitive application process.
Local 3403 section of the US Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents many NEH employees, written in a statement that it “condemns these damaging cuts to people and funding. The arbitrary and disdainful approach to employees and beneficiaries is frankly non -American and unacceptable”.
The human sciences councils are in shock from the news that millions of dollars in federal subsidies previously allocated were canceled by the Trump administration. The letter they received this week said that subsidies have been dismissed because the NEH “reorients its financing allowances in a new direction in the pursuit of President Trump’s agenda”.
Caroline LowerY, executive director of Oklahoma Human Sciences Councilsaid the impact will be “devastating”. Among the projects he supports are the oral history of the survivors of the 1921 race massacre of 1921 and archiving equipment of the Oklahoma City attack in 1995.
“This will mean the erasure of our ability to preserve and share our history,” said LowerY at NPR. “We have a large bipartite support for our work. This is not a partisan question. These funds had already been mandated at the Congress and signed by people we choose to represent us.”
Christina Barr, Executive Director of Nevada Humanités, written in a press release: “The loss of financing of the NEH will not only hinder our work, but will also reduce the enormous economic activity that arts and culture programming brings to the state of Nevada.”
Employees of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IML) have also been set up leave this week.
Erin Harkey, CEO of American’s for the Arts (AFTA) calls actions against IML and NEH “an unprecedented threat to culture in America”.
Harkey echoes the Barr declaration that the elimination of funds from these agencies will harm local economies in every corner of the country, highlighting a recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). THE study noted that “the arts and culture sector has increased more than double the rate of the total economy between 2022 and 2023.”
“The recent economic figures of the NEA highlight the importance of these institutions, which contribute to 1.2 billion of dollars to the American economy and support 5.4 million jobs”, writes Harkey, “eliminating federal support from artistic agencies and human sciences harm American families, weaken local economies and saper the competitive advantage of our country.”
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