The Authors Guild and eight scholar-authors* won a major First Amendment victory yesterday when a New York federal court blocked the government’s unprecedented termination of 1,400 research grants to scholars and authors. 

This ruling represents a crucial check on government power to silence academic voices based on political disagreements. The decision protects not only the 1,400 affected scholars but establishes important precedent that federal agencies cannot use funding decisions to enforce ideological conformity in violation of the First Amendment. Read our initial release about filing the suit here, including statements for those impacted.

The U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York ruled in Authors Guild v. NEH finding that the NEH and DOGE officials’ mass termination of already committed NEH grants to individual scholars and authors violated the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The individual scholars and authors were all part-way though or about to begin yearlong projects for which they were required to take leave from other work, putting them at risk financially, and jeopardizing the completion and publication of their work. The decision is a heartening reminder that courts remain a bastion against government overreach and will step in to protect fundamental rights and liberties when they are blatantly threatened.

In exceptionally pointed language, Judge Colleen McMahon called out the administration’s actions as clear constitutional violations:

Far be it from this Court to deny the right of the Administration to focus NEH priorities on American history and exceptionalism as the year of our semiquincentennial approaches. Such refocusing is ordinarily a matter of agency discretion. But agency discretion does not include discretion to violate the First Amendment. Nor does it give the Government the right to edit history. Adopting a singular view about American history or American exceptionalism when awarding (or terminating the award of) public funds – while excluding whole aspects of that history solely because they relate to the ostensibly “divisive” topics of “diversity” or “equity” or “inclusion,” see, e.g., Executive Order 14151, Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, issued on January 20, 2025, – is a patent violation of the First Amendment. 

The court didn’t stop at First Amendment concerns—it also found the administration violated federal law. In a balanced well-reasoned decision, Judge McMahon agrees with the Authors Guild and individual scholars and authors that the withdrawal of previously committed funding was likely unlawful under the First Amendment in that NEH/DOGE canceled the funded projects because they “promoted or were associated with viewpoints” that the Trump Administration disfavored or were awarded by the prior Democratic administration. The court further held that the mass terminations violated the Administrative Procedures Act, because agency action that is contrary to a constitutional right is de facto an AP violation. The court notes that the NEH’s own authorizing statue was violated by these actions as the law “specifically requires the agency to activities that ‘reach or reflect the diversity and richness of our American cultural heritage, including the culture of, a minority, inner city, rural, or tribal community.’ 20 U.S.C. § 956(c)(4). Yet defunding projects that referenced diversity, and minority/tribal culture – areas of study that the NEH was statutorily required to support – was one of the primary drivers of the Mass Termination.”

The human cost of these cancellations was impossible to ignore, the court found. The court had no trouble finding that there was a likelihood of harm as the record is “replete with evidence that the plaintiff grantees have experienced and will continue to experience harm from the cancellation of their grants.” The author plaintiffs also prevailed on showing that the balance of equities and public interest favor preserving the public’s opportunity to see the scholars’ work.

Judge McMahon also confirmed that the Authors Guild has associational standing in the case and that the Authors Guild and eight other named plaintiffs are adequate representatives of all of the approximately 1400 individual NEH grantees and subgrantees whose grants were terminated in April 2025. The court clarified that preliminary injunctive relief is available class-wide because all grantees who had their grants canceled had them canceled for the same reasons. 

While stopping short of immediately releasing funds, Judge McMahon delivered meaningful protection for the terminated scholars. Noting that while the district court could not order that monies to be paid out because only the Court of Federal Claims can order the payment of funds in such cases, Judge McMahon set aside the grant terminations and ordered that the funds be retained and not re-obligated, essentially “escrowed” until a trial on the merits is held.

*The following scholars and authors were named plaintiffs with the Authors Guild: Nicole D. Jenkins, Kati Balog, Elizabeth Kadetsky, Valerie K. Orlando, William Goldstein, Benjamin Holtzman, and Lee Jasperse.