In a break from its historically liberal disposition, the National Endowment for the Humanities under the Trump administration has awarded funding supporting nearly a dozen projects headed by individuals and organizations linked to the broader conservative movement, a Washington Examiner review has found.
Among the projects funded by the Trump administration’s NEH is scholarly work on Christianity’s role in the American founding, a book arguing that DEI is incompatible with the Declaration of Independence, and positive reflections on American history. Awardees include conservative-linked organizations such as the Abigail Adams Institute and the National Association of Scholars, and academics with histories of right-of-center writing and ties to conservative groups.
On April 24, the NEH announced it would comply with President Donald Trump’s executive orders by ensuring that all its future awards “will, among other things, be merit-based, awarded to projects that do not promote extreme ideologies based upon race or gender, and that help to instill an understanding of the founding principles and ideals that make America an exceptional country.”
Indeed, since that announcement, many NEH awards have been made that align with conservative policy preferences and understandings of history.
One anonymous scholar, for instance, was given $30,000 by the agency to fund work on a book that will “investigate a profound philosophical and practical conflict shaping our nation’s civic discourse: the Declaration of Independence’s call for meritocracy versus the equity-driven imperatives of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies.”
Another such NEH grant was made out to Regent University professor Mark David Hall to support his work endeavoring to marshal historical evidence to support an “unenumerated but judicially enforceable constitutional right for parents to ‘direct the upbringing and education’ of their children.” In his other work, Hall advances the position that parents should be allowed to opt their children out of educational activities that conflict with their religious beliefs, a stance common among conservatives.
The Virginian professor is an Anglican who has worked with the Alliance Defending Freedom and First Liberty Institute, railed against “aggressive LGBTQ indoctrination” in public schools, and argued that Christianity played a major role in the American founding, facts that likely bolster his standing before the current administration.
Hall represents just one of several Christian academics with links to the conservative political world who have received financial support from the NEH under Trump.
Kirstin Birkhaug, a professor at a conservative Christian liberal arts college, for instance, was awarded $30,000 by the NEH to fund her work exploring how “citizenship requires not only legal grounding, but also community-based belonging, civic virtue, participation in collective memory, and commitment to social duties” by analyzing the writing of prominent women from 18th century America.
Birkhaug was recognized by the right-of-center Acton Institute for her work “concerning the relationship between religion, economic freedom, and the free and virtuous society.” Birkhaug is a research fellow at the right-of-center First Liberty Institute and has contributed to Law and Liberty, a right-of-center online magazine.
Other projects belonging to academics with right-of-center or religious affiliations include a study of federalism, an examination of the humanities on college campuses, a book on Founding Father John Jay, a contextual analysis of all 85 Federalist Papers, a work on the importance of honor to George Washington, a volume on Catholic Just War Theory, and an investigation into campus antisemitism.
Sarah Lee, director of communications at the Capital Research Center, perhaps preempting critiques from the Left, told the Washington Examiner that “for these grants to be a problem, one would need to accept the premise that they are ideological or political and pushing activism rather than the academic study of the documented historical role Christianity played in the nation’s founding.”
In the past, the NEH has weathered criticism from conservatives who alleged that the agency used taxpayer money to fund ideologically charged work that was out of step with the views of most Americans.
Previous projects funded by the NEH included training program for middle school teachers on how to further integrate “queer” content into their classrooms as well as support for books spanning topics such as the “neglected queer history” of homosexuality in post-colonial Ireland, the “LBGTQ+ history of comic books,” and how black activists in Argentina use “transnational black feminist politics to convert experiences of pain into purpose.”
NEH RUSHED GRANTS FOR GAY COMIC BOOK RESEARCH AND LIBERAL PROJECTS BEFORE TRUMP CUTS
While many of the academics receiving funding from the NEH have personally argued that religion played an important role in the founding, at least one project explicitly advances that view.
“The Bible is an important, yet understudied, source of influence on the American founders that must be studied alongside other intellectual influences, such as British constitutionalism, Enlightenment liberalism, and classical and civic republicanism, if one wants to understand the broad range of ideas that informed the founding generation’s political thought and practice,” the description of an NEH grant awarded to American University professor Daniel Dreisbach reads. “The chapters will explore biblical influences on the founders’ views of human nature and on the American constitutional tradition and the diverse uses of the Bible in the political rhetoric of the founding era.”
Jonathan Butcher, acting director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Examiner that, though he is unsure how impactful each individual grant will be, the mere fact that the NEH is complying in good faith with the president’s executive orders could have far-reaching implications across the government.
“When an agency like this that awards grants responds to the White House’s priorities, it has a trickle-down effect,” Butcher said. “That becomes what the media then talks about. That becomes the way in which schools have to prioritize and protect women, for example, in their school-wide policies about locker rooms and bathrooms or sports teams … The White House is setting the agenda of what they believe the priorities should be, and that will have a trickle-down effect on federal agencies, which then affects the people who work there, which then affects the constituencies who are served.”
The NEH did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.