Statement on the Limitation of NEH Awards by the Trump Administration
Posted by The Regeneration Collective on 2025-02-22
Statement on the Limitation of NEH Awards by the Trump Administration
In its February 11, 2025 update, the website of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced its compliance with a series of executive orders that limited the use of NEH awards in the following ways:
As required by the Administration’s Executive Orders, NEH awards may not be used for the following purposes:
promotion of gender ideology;
promotion of discriminatory equity ideology;
support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives or activities; or
environmental justice initiatives or activities.
More information about these Executive Orders may be found on the White House’s Presidential Actions webpage.
The Editorial Collective of Regeneration condemns these limitations on NEH awards in the strongest terms. In enacting such cuts to public funding of the humanities, the Executive Branch of the United States government has institutionalized injustice against its own, including trans people, refugees and migrants, people of color, women, queer and disabled people, and Native nations. Such violence runs counter to Regeneration‘s commitment to social, political, and environmental justice, and to a commitment to open-access scholarship. Therefore, we urge our colleagues in the academy and especially environmental humanists to defy these new restrictions by denouncing them in public and reaffirming the practice of justice in our own research, teaching, and service. We offer this statement in a spirit of solidarity and resistance. We encourage our colleagues and contributors to make this spirit visible in our common work. We welcome submissions that engage the regeneration of the world against its would-be tyrants and destroyers. Do not obey in advance.
Stephanie Foote
Anthony Lioi
Dana Luciano