Trump Administration Keeps Slashing the Arts

The Trump administration is escalating its scorched-earth efforts to mold American culture, with a proposed federal budget that eliminates the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The agencies cancelled millions of dollars in grants before and after the document’s release. The White House also fired the nation’s top librarian.

One bright spot: A federal judge has ordered the administration to restore the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The proposed federal budget calls for eliminating the NEA and NEH, both established in 1965. President Trump tried to shutter these agencies during his first administration, but Congress continued to support them.

The NEA is the nation’s largest funder of the arts and arts education, giving away about 80 percent of its $207 million budget in grants and awards. The administration eliminated the agency’s Challenge America grant program for underserved communities in February, stating it would still “encourage” new grant applications that honored the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

But by early May, more bad news dropped into email queues. Multiple arts and literary groups learned May 2 that the government rescinded their NEA grants. Among the losses: $50,000 from San Francisco’s Voice of Witness, an oral-history storytelling project; $30,000 from feminist Brooklyn gallery A.I.R. for its emerging-artist program; $20,000 from Deep Vellum, one of the largest U.S. publishers of literature in translation; and another $20,000 from the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance for a theater festival.

The NEH funds research, museums, libraries and other humanities-related projects. In April, it cancelled more than 1,200 grants it said were “at variance with agency priorities,” such as those focused on diversity, equity and inclusion or on environmental justice.

Still, on May 8, it announced $9.55 million in new grants to support 68 projects around the United States. The projects include an online encyclopedia of Appalachia and a documentary about the diary of a 14-year-old Jewish girl in the Lodz ghetto, as well as “numerous” projects that are part of the NEH’s A More Perfect Union initiative, according to the grant announcement. Those projects, aimed at celebrating the semiquincentennial, include an exhibit about the British military corps that tried to preserve colonial rule during the Revolutionary War, as well as a discussion program for veterans about the legacy and public memorialization of the Civil and Vietnam wars.

Some of the money recouped from cancelled grants will support the creation of a $34 million sculpture garden, dubbed the National Garden of American Heroes. Part of the A More Perfect Union initiative, the garden will feature 250 statues of historical figures included on a prescribed list. A sampling: John Adams, Christopher Columbus, Dr. Seuss, Charlton Heston, Ronald Reagan, Sally Ride, Alex Trebek and Sojourner Truth.

Trump’s proposed budget also axes the Institute for Museum and Library Services along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. On May 13, a federal judge threw up roadblocks to the dissolution of IMLS, ordering the administration to immediately restore staff and resume its grants.

The American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County and Federal Employees sued the IMLS’ acting director in April, after the agency cancelled multiple grants and put most staff on leave. It’s one of two lawsuits pending over the dissolution of the agency and dozens more protesting the administration’s actions since assuming the White House. A federal judge has extended a temporary restraining order through May 29.

On May 8, the administration dismissed Carla Hayden, the nation’s first female and first Black Librarian of Congress. Hayden’s 10-year term was set to expire next year. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later charged Hayden had put “inappropriate books in the library for children,” a surprising claim given that the Library of Congress is the research arm of Congress (not a lending library) and is open to those 16 and older.

The chosen successor to Hayden is Todd Blanche, who became Deputy Attorney General after a stint on Trump’s defense team in his 2024 criminal trial. Blanche does not appear to have any experience in running libraries.

Still, Robert Randolph Newlen, acting head librarian, told staff via email that he was awaiting guidance from Congress before making any change. U.S. House leaders asked the Inspector General May 13 to investigate any potential transfer of information from the Library (a legislative-branch agency) to the executive-branch White House. “The abrupt firing of Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden raises serious concerns that the executive branch is improperly targeting the library,” the letter from assorted members of Congress reads.

Advocacy group Authors Against Book Bans connected all of the above, along with recent book removals from Department of Defense schools, in an Instagram post deriding the administration’s actions.

“Undermining trust in our beloved institutions is a familiar tool – one that comes from the book banner’s playbook,” the May 13 post reads, adding, “Librarians have always had creators’ backs; today we are proud to have theirs.”