National Endowment for the Humanities staff put on immediate leave

Staff at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) were told by email late Thursday night that they were being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately. The news comes two days after 56 state and jurisdiction humanities councils across the country received a letter that their NEH grants were being terminated.

The NEH has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

A senior NEH official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, confirms to NPR that among the 145 staff members – 80% of the staff – placed on administrative leave are people from communications, program officers and directors. The official says a team from the Department of Government Efficiency has been visiting NEH offices over the past couple of weeks “and then ratcheted up the pressure.”

Earlier this week, DOGE had told NEH staff that it would lay off a substantial number of employees and cut its grant programs, as first reported by The New York Times.

Nearly half of the NEH’s budget goes directly to humanities councils in every U.S. state and jurisdiction. The endowment also supports museums, libraries, preservation, history and media projects through a competitive application process.

The American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403 (AFGE), the union that represents many NEH employees, writes in a statement that it “condemns these damaging cuts to people and funding. The arbitrary and dismissive approach to employees and grantees is frankly un-American and unacceptable.”

Humanities councils are reeling from the news that millions of dollars in previously awarded federal grants have been canceled by the Trump administration. The letter they received this week stated grants were being terminated because the NEH is “repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of President Trump’s agenda.”

Caroline Lowery, executive director of the Oklahoma Humanities Council, said the impact will be “devastating.” Among the projects it supports are oral histories from survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and archiving material from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

“This will mean the erasure of our ability to preserve and share our history,” Lowery told NPR. “We have broad bipartisan support for our work. This is not a partisan issue. These funds had already been congressionally mandated and signed into law by people who we elect to represent us.”

Christina Barr, executive director of Nevada Humanities writes in a statement, “The loss of funding from the NEH will not only severely hinder our work, it will also reduce the tremendous amount of economic activity that arts and culture programming brings to the state of Nevada.”

Employees at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) were also put on administrative leave this week.

Erin Harkey, CEO of American’s for the Arts (AFTA) calls the actions against the IMLS and the NEH “an unprecedented threat to culture in America.”

Harkey echoed Barr’s statement that eliminating funds to these agencies will hurt local economies in every corner of the country, pointing to recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The study found that the “arts and cultural sector grew at more than twice the rate of the total economy between 2022 and 2023.”

“Recent economic figures from the NEA highlight the significance of these institutions, which contribute $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy and support 5.4 million jobs,” writes Harkey. “Eliminating federal support for arts and humanities agencies will harm American families, weaken local economies, and undermine our nation’s competitive edge.”