They used ChatGPT to justify terminations without reading a single application
In a May ruling from a Manhattan federal court, the sweeping cancellation of thousands of humanities grants by the Department of Government Efficiency was found unlawful and unconstitutional — a decision that places the enduring question of who controls the public purse at the center of American civic life. Judge Colleen McMahon's 143-page opinion found that DOGE officials, lacking both statutory authority and subject-matter expertise, had violated First and Fifth Amendment protections when they erased funding Congress had already authorized and the National Endowment for the Humanities had already awarded. The case, brought by some of the nation's oldest scholarly organizations, is less a story about grants than about the boundaries of executive power and the fragility of institutional knowledge when it meets the speed of political will.
- DOGE moved with startling speed in April 2025, terminating thousands of congressionally appropriated humanities grants without reviewing a single application or consulting anyone with relevant expertise.
- Major scholarly institutions — including the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association — found their approved funding erased without warning, halting projects and upending commitments universities had already made.
- Court filings revealed that DOGE staff, largely in their twenties with little professional experience, used ChatGPT to generate justifications for the terminations, centering on DEI-related themes rather than any substantive evaluation of the work.
- Judge McMahon's 143-page ruling found violations of the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment equal protection, and core separation-of-powers principles, prohibiting the administration from enforcing the terminations.
- The decision, consolidated with a parallel lawsuit from The Authors Guild, now sets a significant precedent on the limits of executive authority over congressionally directed spending.
On a Thursday in May, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the Trump administration's mass cancellation of thousands of humanities grants was unlawful, unconstitutional, and unenforceable. The decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by three of America's most established scholarly organizations — the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association, and the Modern Language Association — each of which had seen federally approved funding revoked without warning.
The cancellations had been carried out in April 2025 by DOGE, the administration's cost-cutting operation, which terminated grants that Congress had already appropriated and the National Endowment for the Humanities had already awarded. The affected organizations argued that the executive branch had no constitutional authority to erase spending lawmakers had already authorized — and Judge Colleen McMahon agreed.
Her 143-page opinion was unsparing. She found violations of the First Amendment, given that the grants supported scholarly speech and intellectual work, as well as Fifth Amendment equal protection guarantees. Most fundamentally, she concluded that DOGE officials had no statutory authority to do what they had done.
What made the ruling especially striking was what the litigation revealed about the process behind the cancellations. DOGE staff had not reviewed a single grant application or consulted anyone with humanities expertise. Instead, they had used ChatGPT to construct rationales for termination, focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion themes. The staff members leading the effort, McMahon noted, were largely in their twenties with little relevant professional experience.
The ruling, consolidated with a separate lawsuit from The Authors Guild, meant that funding would have to be restored — at least for now. But the case raised questions that will outlast any single grant cycle: whether a president can unilaterally ignore congressional appropriations, and what it costs when that power is exercised without process, expertise, or regard for the law.
On a Thursday in May, a federal judge in Manhattan handed down a decision that stopped the Trump administration cold: the mass cancellation of thousands of humanities grants was unlawful, unconstitutional, and unenforceable. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by three of America's most established scholarly organizations—the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association, and the Modern Language Association of America—each of which had seen their federally approved funding yanked without warning or explanation.
The sequence of events had unfolded with startling speed. In April 2025, the Department of Government and Efficiency, the administration's cost-cutting operation known as DOGE, terminated thousands of grants that Congress had already appropriated and the National Endowment for the Humanities had already awarded. The affected groups sued the following month, arguing that the executive branch had no constitutional power to simply erase spending that lawmakers had already authorized. The Constitution, they contended, does not permit a president to block or delay money Congress has already allocated based on his own policy preferences.
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon's 143-page opinion was unsparing. She found that the terminations violated the First Amendment—a significant finding given that the grants supported scholarly speech and intellectual work. She also found violations of the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee. Most fundamentally, she concluded that DOGE officials lacked any statutory authority to do what they had done. The administration was prohibited from enforcing the terminations, meaning the grants would have to be restored.
What emerged in the course of the litigation was a portrait of the process that had led to the cancellations, and it was damning. DOGE staff members tasked with identifying which grants to eliminate had not examined a single application or reviewed any underlying materials. They had not studied the work being funded or consulted anyone with expertise in the humanities. Instead, they had turned to ChatGPT—the artificial intelligence chatbot—to help them construct rationales for why the grants should be terminated, focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion themes. The staff members leading the effort, McMahon noted in her opinion, were in their twenties and had little professional experience in any field, let alone one as specialized as humanities scholarship.
The decision was consolidated with a separate lawsuit brought by The Authors Guild, whose members had also received grant funding and faced the same terminations. The ruling applied to all of them.
The implications were substantial. Thousands of scholars, researchers, and academic institutions had lost funding they had been counting on. Universities had made commitments based on those grants. Projects had been halted. The judge's decision meant that money would flow again, at least for now. But the case also raised larger questions about the limits of executive power—about whether a president could simply decide to ignore appropriations Congress had made, and about what happens when that power is exercised without expertise, without process, and without regard for the law.
Citas Notables
The DOGE staff tasked with leading the effort were in their twenties and did not have much experience in anything at all—certainly not in anything remotely related to the humanities.— Judge Colleen McMahon, U.S. District Court
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why did the judge focus so heavily on the fact that DOGE staff hadn't actually read the grant applications?
Because it went to the heart of the constitutional violation. You can't terminate something based on its content—especially speech-related content—without actually examining what that content is. Using ChatGPT to invent reasons after the fact, without looking at what was actually being funded, showed there was no legitimate review process at all.
But couldn't the administration argue they were just cutting costs, that it wasn't about suppressing speech?
That's the thing—the judge found they weren't even doing that competently. They didn't examine whether the grants were wasteful or duplicative. They just flagged thousands of them based on AI-generated talking points about diversity. If you're going to terminate federal spending, you have to follow the law. You can't just decide the money shouldn't be spent because you don't like the subject matter.
What does it mean that the staff members were in their twenties with no humanities background?
It matters because it shows the decision wasn't made by anyone who could actually evaluate what was being funded. These weren't policy experts or budget analysts. They were young staffers using a chatbot. The judge was essentially saying: this wasn't a legitimate exercise of executive authority. It was arbitrary.
Does this ruling actually stop the administration from trying again?
For now, yes—the judge prohibited them from enforcing the terminations. But the real question is whether Congress will act, or whether this becomes a template for how courts handle executive overreach on spending. The administration can appeal, but they'd have to overturn a pretty thorough legal analysis.