The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded $75.1 million to 84 projects in its first grant round since President Donald Trump dismissed nearly all members of the National Council on the Humanities. The largest grants—$10 million each—went to the University of Texas at Austin and the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education (FEHE), with other significant awards to the Abigail Adams Institute, Grand Central Atelier, and the Museum of the American Revolution. Many funded projects emphasize American exceptionalism, classical philosophy, civics, and Western canonical texts, reflecting the Trump administration's conservative priorities.
This round of NEH grants matters because it signals a deliberate shift in federal humanities funding toward conservative and classical educational values, potentially reshaping academic curricula and museum programming. The awards to institutions like Grand Central Atelier, which promotes pre-modernist art, and the Museum of the American Revolution, which has faced scrutiny for hosting a far-right group, highlight the politicization of cultural funding. The grants also raise questions about the future of the NEH's advisory council and the balance between ideological priorities and scholarly independence in publicly funded humanities projects.