President Donald Trump’s administration has been hit with a class-action lawsuit over its decision to cancel tens of millions of dollars’ worth of arts grants and direct the money to a sculpture garden dedicated to “American heroes.” In early April, the National Endowment for the Humanities notified about 1,400 grantees that it was canceling their grants effective immediately, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by The Authors Guild. The money would instead be used for the “National Garden of American Heroes” that Trump has been trying to build since his first term. The garden is envisioned as a “vast outdoor park” with hundreds of life-size sculptures of subjects ranging from Theodore Roosevelt to Alex Trebek, according to an executive order Trump issued in 2021. The NEH is currently accepting applications for grants of up to $600,000 to create the statutes, which must be made of marble, copper, granite, bronze, or brass. The Authors Guild’s suit argues the move violates numerous laws—including federal rules governing congressional appropriations—and the NEH grantees’ First Amendment rights. The termination notices cited Trump’s executive orders on “radical indoctrination,” “biological truth,” and “DEI programs.” The Daily Beast has reached out to the NEH for comment.
