The National Endowment for the Arts now requires that any grant applicants must promise to not promote “gender ideology” in their projects as a result of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump the day of his inauguration.
In response to the new grant restrictions, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the NEA on behalf of Rhode Island Latino Arts, National Queer Theater, The Theater Offensive, and the Theatre Communications Group. Said groups received grants in the past and are now campaigning in support of LGBTQ+ communities.
Executive Order 14168 is a presidential action intended to “defend women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.” Section 2 of the order claims “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” The action prevents any sort of federal grants from being used to promote “gender ideology” as defined by the order.
The order defined “gender ideology” as a replacement to the biological category of sex, “permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true.”
The NEA attempted to require that applicants would also promise not to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in ways that violate anti-discrimination law; however, a preliminary injunction issued by the district court of Maryland put a temporary suspension on it, meaning the NEA does not have to comply with DEI Executive Order 14173.
The NEA, established in 1965, has been awarding grants to different organizations in support of the arts across all 50 states. The lawsuit filed by ACLU outlined the new policies as unconstitutional under the First Amendment and claimed that the new policies went against NEA’s own governing statute.
“Congress made the NEA an agency of arts professionals guided by artistic merit rather than of politicians who might be driven by political concerns,” the filing states. “It required that the NEA’s decisionmakers—the Chair and the National Council on the Arts—be experts in the arts.”
“It’s ironic for us to be asked to check a box saying we won’t promote gender ideology,” Adam Odsess-Rubin, founding artistic director of National Queer Theater, said. “It doesn’t make sense to us. It’s not clear how it serves the American public at all and, frankly, it’s discriminatory.”
On March 7, following the lawsuit, the NEA removed the requirement of swearing off the promotion of “gender ideology” during the grant application process but retained the idea that if their committee believed the projects appeared to promote “gender ideology” they would not receive funding.
“We won’t stop fighting until these new requirements are struck down for good,” Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney for the ACLU, said.
Eidelman will continue to request a preliminary injunction be put in place against it before the final application deadline.
