___In addition to using ChatGPT to review grants, DOGE employees who had no experience in academic research or the humanities determined whether NEH grants should be funded, depositions show.
In the motion filed Friday, those associations and the Authors Guild called the terminations “unconstitutional” and claimed the NEH violated the First Amendment by targeting grants for their viewpoints and perceived political associations. They argued that the NEH violated the equal protection clause by flagging grant descriptions as “DEI” solely because they included terms such as “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, people of color); “homosexual”; “LGBTQ”; or “Tribal.” They also accused the NEH and its leaders of violating the separation of powers, since DOGE—not the NEH—carried out the termination of the grants, and did it without approval from Congress.
In his deposition, Justin Fox, an employee of the General Services Administration and part of the DOGE Small Agencies Team, said he used the ChatGPT prompt to tag “DEI” grants without instructing the large language model on how to define “DEI.” ChatGPT flagged a number of grants as DEI-related that were ultimately terminated.
Among them was a $349,000 grant to replace an aging HVAC system at the High Point Museum in North Carolina. “Improving HVAC systems enhances preservation conditions for collections, aligning with the goal of providing greater access to diverse audiences,” the ChatGPT DEI rationale stated.
Another project from the University of Oregon Center for Digital Research in the Humanities and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln seeking funds to support local newspaper digitization and preservation programs was marked “yes” as relating to DEI because the initiative “seeks to enhance digital newspaper programs, making them more accessible and customizable which aligns with DEI goals of inclusivity and representation.”
read more: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2026/03/11/how-doge-gutted-neh-22-days
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