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NHA Statement on Threats to the NEH, Posted On April 1, 2025 by Alex Klein:
"On Monday, March 31, 2025 we learned that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is targeting the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) with the aim of substantially reducing its staff, cutting the agency’s grant programs, and rescinding grants that have already been awarded. DOGE is targeting a small federal agency that—with an annual appropriation that amounts to a rounding error in the U.S. budget—has a positive impact on every congressional district.
Established in 1965, the National Endowment for the Humanities is the only entity, federal or private, tasked with making the humanities accessible to all Americans. The NEH connects Americans in every state with our nation’s rich history and culture.
The NEH provides crucial support for cultural organizations. Through grants to libraries, museums, historic sites, educational institutions, and other cultural organizations—and its partnership with the state and jurisdictional humanities councils—the NEH:
NEH funding and NEH staff are essential to this work. For 60 years, NEH staff members have helped grantees navigate government systems and develop strong proposals that bring high-quality humanities programs to American communities. NEH staff ensure that small and large organizations alike have access to federal funds. Moreover, they are tireless in their efforts to ensure that U.S. tax dollars are spent well.
Cutting NEH funding directly harms communities in every state and contributes to the destruction of our shared cultural heritage. Cutting NEH staff who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to their positions guts the NEH itself. This puts unnecessary barriers in the way of the agency’s mission to distribute federal dollars to American communities.
We condemn these actions in the strongest possible terms. We support the mission of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the agency staff who make that mission possible, and we call upon Members of Congress to ensure that this crucial government agency fulfills the mandate set by Congress." - https://nhalliance.org/nha-statement-neh-doge-threats/
I have always had trouble choosing “just one” of anything, and this is especially true when it comes to courses of study and educational paths to pursue. I love working in multiple literary genres, studying multiple disciplines simultaneously, and resisting simplistic binaries between “creative” and “critical.” The PhD program in Comparative Humanities at the University of Louisville embodies, for me, an innovative, “all of the above” approach to learning and teaching. My years in this program opened doors in my life as a scholar, writer, and professor that continue to swing wide, doors I plan to hold open for my own students for the rest of my academic career. I’m so grateful to have been able to mix and merge, fuse and blend my study of contemporary American literature and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies toward the completion of a queer, feminist bildungsroman and a critical afterword exploring the autobiographical impulse across various identities and modes of expression. I was mentored impeccably by my professors at UofL—their compassionate rigor and unflagging guidance. I carry their teachings with me in every aspect of my life.
—Julie Marie Wade, PhD in Comparative Humanities (2012), Professor of English & Creative Writing at Florida International University