A letter signed by hundreds of artists was sent to members of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and The New York Times, calling for the NEA to reverse their new anti-DEI and anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
The new policies, introduced on Feb. 18 at a NEA workshop, comes from President Trump’s two executive orders that call to eliminate federal funding for programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts and “gender ideology.” The letter specifically refers to the “Grants for Arts Projects” (GAP) program that provides funding for “public engagement with the arts and arts education,” along with other commitments. For all groups that plan to apply for GAP, the NEA now requires organizations to confirm that such funding will not be used for DEI efforts or to promote gender ideology.
New York native and theater director Annie Dorsen introduced the letter sent to the National Endowment for the Arts, which included support from Pulitzer-Prize winning playwrights Jackie Sibblies Drury and Lynn Nottage. Dorsen, along with 463 artists, called for the NEA to stand upon its promises to the performing arts community and reject the new policies.
“While the arts community stands in solidarity with the NEA, we oppose this betrayal of the Endowment’s mission to ‘foster and sustain an environment in which the arts benefit everyone in the United States,’” the letter said. “We ask that the NEA reverse those changes to the compliance requirements.”
For art groups nationwide, their programs become at risk. Groups like Chicago’s Black Girls Dance, a nonprofit that mentors young dancers, and Texas’ Latinitas, providing educational resources and opportunities, question their future and causes. The new administration continues to push against the performing arts following the president’s announcement to fire Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center’s board members and appoint public official Richard Grenell as the interim executive director of the Center.
The open letter continued to speak upon the president’s new executive orders, stating that “Trump and his enablers may use doublespeak to claim that support for artists of color amounts to ‘discrimination’ and that funding the work of trans and women artists promotes ‘gender ideology’ (whatever that is). But we know better: the arts are for and represent everybody.”
Despite Dorsen’s statement to NPR that the letter was sent to the NEA privately, a spokesperson for the NEA said to NPR that “no person at the NEA has received the letter.” The spokesperson reiterated that the executive order applies to all federal agencies, including the NEA, where they are expected to and will “fully comply with the law.”
For more information on the NEA, visit arts.gov.
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