US Agency Used ChatGPT to Cut Grants

The process for canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants was directed by DOGE staffers Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur and Indiana University dropout, and Justin Fox, a 27-year-old former investment banking analyst. Depositions reveal these DOGE members made funding decisions despite having no legal authority to do so. A key tool in their process was a crude prompt fed into ChatGPT. For each grant, Fox would reportedly ask the AI: "Does the following relate at all to DEI? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with 'Yes.' or 'No.' followed by a brief explanation." No definition of "DEI" was provided to the AI, and its unverified responses were entered into a spreadsheet to determine which grants to terminate. This method led to the cancellation of more than 1,200, and by some estimates 1,400, grants, totaling approximately $427 million. Among the defunded projects were a documentary on Jewish women's slave labor during the Holocaust, an archival project on Italian American life, the digitization of Appalachian photograph collections, and multiple projects to preserve endangered Native American languages. The lawsuit, filed by groups including the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association, has now advanced to a motion for summary judgment as of March 6, 2026. Paula M. Krebs, executive director of the MLA, stated, "The facts in this case have exposed the administration's total disregard for the democratic process and for the value of the humanities that the NEH exists to promote." Discovery documents also revealed that key DOGE and NEH team members, including then-acting NEH chair Michael McDonald, used the encrypted messaging app Signal for official communications, setting messages to auto-delete. This action is a violation of the Federal Records Act. In a message to Fox, McDonald ceded his authority, writing, "as you've made clear, it's your decision on whether to discontinue funding any of the projects on this list." The American Historical Association condemned the grant cancellations as a "frontal attack on the nation's public culture," calling it "unpatriotic, anti-American, and unjustified." The cuts have had a devastating effect on cultural institutions nationwide, with some state humanities councils losing up to 65% of their annual budgets. The legal filings allege that DOGE's actions violated the constitutional separation of powers and the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by refusing to spend funds appropriated by Congress. The lawsuit seeks to restore the unlawfully terminated funding that supports museums, libraries, universities, and other cultural organizations in all 50 states.