The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency is demanding deep cuts to a federal agency that funds humanities-focused organizations across the country, according to officials from the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities.
The National Endowment for the Humanities — which supports preservation and research in disciplines related to culture, education and more — has funded more than $9.3 million to 42 humanities projects in Hawai‘i since 2020.
Now, the federal agency has already been sending out termination letters to Hawai‘i organizations that were awarded grants.
Maile Loo-Ching, executive director of the Hula Preservation Society, received termination letters this week for her funds on two projects the nonprofit has been working on.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” she said.
The first letter sent to Loo-Ching on Wednesday was from NEH acting Chair Michael McDonald. The “Notice of Grant Termination” said, “Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities and condition of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes.”
“NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda,” the letter continued.
Loo-Ching said the nonprofit has already been working on two projects. One was to preserve 78 records from Vivienne Mader’s teaching collection. Mader was a Hawaiian dance teacher from New York, whose records were inherited 100 years later by the Hula Preservation Society.
“This grant was to better care for them in terms of how they’re stored in our archive, how they’re housed and just making sure that all the information is properly documented in our database,” Loo-Ching said.
NEH funds had been awarded to the nonprofit through a competitive application process.
The Hula Preservation Society has tried three times to apply for the NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant, which Loo-Ching said has an 18% success rate of receiving the funds.
But as of Thursday, Loo-Ching also received a termination grant letter. She said the nonprofit was already spending money on the two projects.
“All the work that we’ve been doing for the last 11 months now will go unpaid,” she said.
Loo-Ching underscored that the nonprofit lost out on $100,000. “That’s not a small amount,” she added.
The NEH could not be reached for comment.
The NEH is the country’s largest public funder of the humanities, providing grants to museums, archives, libraries, universities, individual scholars and more.
Locally, the NEH grants have supported Bishop Museum, Hawai‘i Community College, North Shore Community Land Trust, ‘Iolani Palace, the Hula Preservation Society, the Department of Ethnic Studies Center for Oral History at the University of Hawai‘i, and various researchers.
Aiko Yamashiro, executive director for the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities, said a majority of the nonprofit’s budget comes from the NEH to support public programs locally.
“I feel angry at these kinds of violent cuts that are impacting so many people, not just in our sector but across our different sectors and the way that they’re happening without real community input or disregarding community input and community stories,” Yamashiro said. “I also really strongly believe in the power of our community to raise our voices and to rise above this.”
The cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities also come at a time as the National Endowment for the Arts cut its grant program Challenge America, which has provided funds to underserved communities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services has placed 80% of its staff on administrative leave.
