Arts and culture organizations across the country got the news late Wednesday night: Their federal funding was gone. Their National Endowment for the Humanities grants were being terminated.
For Oregon Humanities, an organization that creates and supports cultural events throughout the state, the money that was expected to partially fund their work through 2027 was gone, overnight.
“Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant,” the letter from the National Endowment for the Humanities read. “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.”
The terminations are part of a purge by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, created by President Donald Trump.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Musk’s team was demanding a 70% to 80% staff reduction at the National Endowment for the Humanities and “what could amount to a cancellation of all grants made under the Biden administration that have not been fully paid out.”
The impacts of the late-night message were immediate at Oregon Humanities. According to Ben Waterhouse, director of communications, the organization was forced to immediately pause its grant program for supporting public humanities events.
That program, which helps bring cultural events to places all over the state, is mostly funded with money from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
While Oregon Humanities doesn’t fully rely on money from the National Endowment for the Humanities, it does make up almost 45% of the group’s budget.
“We were expecting bad news,” Waterhouse said, especially in the wake of cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services earlier this week.
The news isn’t just bad for Oregon Humanities. Money from the National Endowment for the Humanities funds projects from Oregon’s universities, museums and tribes.
According to a press release sent out by Oregon Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded more than $16 million in grants in Oregon since 2020.
Recipients include the High Desert Museum, Confederated Tribes-Umatilla and the City of Astoria, among many others.
Linfield University is three-quarters of the way through a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded project to train faculty in authentic storytelling and pilot a new class. The university had received nearly $46,000 of a $60,000 grant when they received notice that it was terminated Wednesday.
A group of professors at Portland State University were also among those who received a termination notice, though they got theirs on Thursday morning.
English professors Rachel Noorda, Susan Kirtley and Kathi Inman Berens have spent the last five years building a pilot program for a creative industries minor at PSU.
They are two years into a three-year, $150,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“The heart of this creative industries minor was to create new courses and support and transform existing courses to serve students who wanted to work in the creative industries in Portland,” Noorda said Thursday.
Classes that are part of the pilot program are already available at PSU, including one co-taught by Inman Berens and a computer science professor about artificial intelligence and humanities.
“We really want to help our students get good jobs that they enjoy and that contribute to the community,” Kirtley said.
“It is so disheartening,” she said of the termination of the funding, “because it’s hurting our students.”
The project has outstanding money due to a graduate student and advisory board members, the professors said. And they are unsure how those will be paid.
Not every group with an active grant in Oregon received a termination notice on Wednesday.
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Leah Murray, the director of the Shelton McMurray Johnson House, a museum in Eugene, said Thursday she hadn’t heard anything about the fate of her $25,000 grant, which still had $16,000 to be paid before ending this fall.
That money is going towards a project to gather oral histories in the Skinner Butte area of Eugene and accounts for 10% of the museum’s 2025 budget.
“I have not received a termination notice yet,” Murray said, “but I have requested the funds so that hopefully they will not get terminated.
“That is the advice that’s been going out, just go and try to get your funds before it gets shut down.”
If Murray doesn’t get the money, she said, she won’t be able to finish the project.
“None of those funds are funds for the museum. They’re all funds to go out to our contractors and the people that we’re working with, the people that we interviewed, their stipends,” she said. “So this is all funds that will be distributed to the community.”
– Lizzy Acker covers life and culture and writes the advice column Why Tho? Reach her at 503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com.
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