Editorial: With Trumpian cruelty, National Endowment for the Arts claws back grants

Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune on May 6, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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Whatever you think of the National Endowment for the Arts, or federal funding of the arts more generally, surely reasonable Americans all can agree that government agencies should not claw back previously approved grants when struggling nonprofit organizations had already started their projects after being told they could count on that money.

But that’s exactly what happened late Friday night when the NEA sent letters to a variety of grantees informing them their grants were being nixed. The after-hours emails, sent from inboxes unwilling to accept replies, followed the release of Trump’s budget Friday, wherein he proposed defunding the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities, two entities he long has targeted. (Trump also issued an executive order late Thursday cutting off federal funding for NPR and PBS, claiming ideological bias. Court challenges are underway.)

In the case of the NEA on Friday night, theaters and other arts groups were told their grants no longer aligned with NEA priorities and were being either rescinded or immediately terminated, depending on the circumstances. Many affected groups contacted reporters and took to social media. In one example, the Portland Playhouse in Oregon said it had received a email from the endowment on the very eve of its opening a production of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” theoretically with $25,000 already promised from the NEA.

Let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that Trump is within his executive rights as duly elected president to change the “priorities” of the NEA, although the new NEA criteria listed in the emails we’ve been shown are bizarre indeed, even including “fostering A.I. competency,” which sure as heck is not why we attend the live arts in Chicago.

Even if they sought change or elimination, any decent president would honor previous commitments, not rescind the funding when the recipient already was in a hole dug in good faith. Trump could have started his new vision, if that’s the word, with the next funding cycle, if there is to be any funding cycle. He did not have to destroy the trusted word of an agency long known for empathetic staffers. And let’s add here that, in the world of DOGE, $25,000 is not exactly a massive amount of money. The NEA hasn’t been a major source of arts funding for years. On the one hand, that means its actions aren’t likely to be catastrophic for most grantees. On the other, it makes these actions seem all the more cruel and petty.

Perhaps that was Trump’s point. If so, it’s un-American, unbecoming to his office and, frankly, pathetic.

We’re aware many nonprofit constituencies are in the same unmoored boat as arts groups, but Friday night’s actions were especially sleazy and egregious. At a bare minimum, Trump should direct the NEA to deliver the previously promised checks for projects already underway. And whatever they think of these agencies and their priorities, Republicans in Congress should ensure these matters get a full and fair debate in the light of day.

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