I mentioned earlier that I was speaking with a source who had an NEH grant canceled. These cancelations happened a couple weeks ago, and have been widely reported, but I wanted to share some of the atmospherics of those cancelations. By the standards of grants we’re hearing about at big research universities, the dollar value of the grant is quite small, not even that far into six figures. The specifics of the grant or the recipient or the nature of the work aren’t what I want to discuss. I know what it is. It sounds like a fascinating project. But I wanted to share some details with you because I think it provides a window into the DOGE world. Even amidst the scholarly carnage and willful destruction, it’s bizarre to the point of comedy and right back to bizarre. I can’t describe it any better than just giving you some examples.
First, there’s a portal for NEH grants called the eGMS Reach system. You use it to make your application, get your grant, manage the grant, even terminate the grant. They didn’t use that. But that’s only the beginning of the story. They didn’t even use a government or NEH email. The email I’m looking at comes from an onMicrosoft dot com account. That’s the default email account you get when you purchase an Office 365 software suite, the one that includes Word, Excel, etc. It’s the out-of-the-box account you get to use before you get the system fully set up. Since it’s enterprise software designed for businesses or schools you eventually tie it to your organization’s URL.
The cover letter included as an attachment comes over the signature of acting NEH Chairman Michael McDonald, the longtime NEH General Counsel who was installed as Chair by DOGE. (He appears to have been the in-house right-winger and presumably that’s why he got made acting chair.) In explanation of sending out the email from a Microsoft account, it reads: “The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for the administration, and due to exceptional circumstances, adherence to the traditional notification process is not possible.”
If you didn’t know the NEH was being lit on fire you’d almost certainly think the email was a prank or some sort of phishing effort. In any event, I’m told that many university administrators were literally afraid to open the links because it seemed so obviously fake.
If the language above reads a bit stilted, here’s the explanation of the grant termination. “Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes, as outlined in 2CFR§200.340. NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.”
Got that? Lemme effectuate another sentence to drive the point home.
Later the former grantee is told “Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government …”
The letter concludes by noting that the recipient’s grant may still be audited notwithstanding the termination (nice touch!) before including another onMicrosoft email to contact with any questions, while adding that “only urgent questions” should be sent.
This reads like the place was taken over by a gang of poorly socialized teens who don’t get out enough. And I think that’s because that’s actually want happened. From what I can tell, McDonald was the house right-winger. He’d been general counsel since 2003. I bet he can write more clearly than that. The whole thing is comical, bizarre, sad. But I found it clarifying because you get a palpable sense here of the kinds of people who are actually making the decision about demolishing whole sections of the U.S. government.
It occurred to me that the text might be a kind of performative philistinism to troll the concept of the humanities? Maybe? Maybe it’s AI. But I’m pretty sure it’s option one. We should remember, even as these events start to seem expected if not normal that the NEH is a creation of the U.S. Congress. It’s a statutory creation. The President has no authority to shut it down. DOGE remains an insider threat operation empowered by the U.S. President.
