Lawsuit documents: two DOGE employees used ChatGPT to identify National Endowment for the Humanities grants, worth $100M+, to be cut for being related to DEI
Documents show how A.I. was used to cancel most previously approved grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the agency embraced President Trump's agenda.
New York Times Jennifer Schuessler
Related Coverage
- DOGE Employees Used ChatGPT to Cancel Humanities Grants, Suits Allege Artforum
- As a victim of this DOGE initiated catastrophe last year, The Living New Deal Project staff still mourn the loss of our Level II Digital Humanities Advancement Grant, worth $150,000. … Mary Okin
- As a victim of this DOGE initiated catastrophe last year, The Living New Deal Project staff still mourn the loss of our Level II Digital Humanities Advancement Grant, worth $150,000. … Mary Okin
- NY Times Jenny Schuessler provides a superb and thoughtful narrative and analysis of NEH's termination of over $100 million in grants. … James Grossman
- DOGE staffer found grants to cut at the National Endowment for the Humanities with a 36-word ChatGPT prompt https://www.nytimes.com/... [images] @zseward · Zach Seward
- I've complained before that an #NEH funded klezmer publishing project I was a minor part of was killed along with all the other stuff when Trump was reelected. I knew some of this stuff but hearing about the quotes from the dolts involved during a deposition is boiling my blood all over again. … @carkner@klezmor.im
- I've accused #DOGE of terminating #NEH grants (and other grants) by using dumb keyword searches to look for prohibited words. It turns out that DOGE used dumb #ChatGPT prompts instead. Like this one (quoting verbatim): “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. … @petersuber@fediscience.org
- “The DOGE employees did not appear to question ChatGPT's judgments, and continued hunting for unacceptable projects. Two weeks later, they sent a master list of 1,477 problematic awards — nearly every active grant made during the Biden administration — to Michael McDonald, the endowment's acting chairman.” … @acdha@thepit.social · Chris Adams
- From Jason Rhody (@jasonrhody.bsky.social ): — As someone who watched the careful stewardship of grants over many years, the lack of care and the dismissal of the hard work of scholars and NEH program staff described here is devastating and shameful. — https://www.nytimes.com/... … @kfitz@hcommons.social · Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Discussion
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@kashhill
@kashhill
on bluesky
Of course they asked a chatbot to do it for them. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...
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@andytseng
Andy Tseng
on bluesky
These grants fund research, museums, and local culture across the US. Whatever damage we see now may be nothing compared to the ripple effects years from now. — #USPol #DOGE #ChatGPT #AI #DEI #Humanities #ResearchSky #NationalEndowmentForTheHumanities [embedded post]
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@historians.org
@historians.org
on bluesky
Major news: A @nytimes.com story today reports on developments in our lawsuit, filed with @modernlanguage.bsky.social and @acls1919.bsky.social, opposing the illegal dismantling of the NEH. — The article covers newly released discovery in the case. — Here's what discovery con…
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@Incognitim@mastodon.social
@Incognitim@mastodon.social
on mastodon
JFC- — #musk gave #doge the mandate of canceling grants that ran afoul of trump...they pulled short summaries off the internet & fed them into #ChatGPT: “Does the following relate at all to #dei?” The results were sweeping and bizarre. …
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r/politics
r
on reddit
When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities