Private donations to keep Humanities North Dakota open after federal cut
Attendees listen to a presentation by podcaster and author Kate Bowler organized by Humanities North Dakota in Fargo in 2024. (Photo provided by Humanities North Dakota)
Humanities North Dakota has received $300,000 in private donations to keep its doors open after it learned earlier this month all its federal funding had been terminated.
That figure includes $200,000 from the New York-based Mellon Foundation, which on Tuesday pledged $15 million to a total of 56 humanities councils around the country. The other $100,000 came from other donors, according to Executive Director Brenna Gerhardt.
The money will help keep the organization afloat after its grant money was abruptly pulled by the federal government. But it only replaces a portion of the cut funding.
'The Mellon Foundation's support is both a lifeline and a vote of confidence,' Gerhardt said in a Tuesday statement announcing the award.
In addition, Humanities North Dakota can receive up to $50,000 in matching funds from the Mellon Foundation with the help of local donors. The Mellon Foundation will double any contributions to Humanities North Dakota made after Tuesday. Donations can be made on the Humanities North Dakota website.
'At stake are both the operational integrity of organizations like museums, libraries, historical societies in every single state, as well as the mechanisms to participate in the cultural dynamism and exchange that is a fundamental part of American civic life,' Elizabeth Alexander, the Mellon Foundation's president, said in a Tuesday announcement.
Alexander said that even though the donation won't cover all of the lost funding, she hopes the money will help councils get by.
Humanities North Dakota in limbo after loss of federal funding
Humanities North Dakota, which provides public education in areas including history, civics and the arts, has historically relied on funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to cover operational costs.
The nonprofit on April 2 received a letter from the federal agency that stated a $900,000 grant it received for the 2025 fiscal year had been terminated. Humanities North Dakota, which has four full-time and two part-time staff, had yet to spend more than $600,000 of the grant.
The National Endowment for the Humanities, which provides funding to humanities organizations across the country, is 'repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda,' Acting Chairman Michael McDonald wrote in the letter.
The letter cites a Feb. 19 executive order by President Donald Trump which the White House says will streamline federal bureaucracy.
A total of $65 million in grant money awarded to 56 humanities councils serving U.S. states, territories and Washington, D.C., was terminated.
In response to the funding cuts, Humanities North Dakota is launching a new initiative to share online programming with other humanities councils, Gerhardt said.
Called 'The Study,' the effort is intended to help out councils that don't have the funding to continue providing programming without the federal money.
Humanities councils that join The Study will get access to livestreamed programs, a repository of recorded events and other content.
Humanities North Dakota is in a unique position to help other councils since it's consistently held events online since the coronavirus pandemic, said Gerhardt.
'We're the only one with the infrastructure to pivot this quickly,' she said. The hope is that North Dakota and other states begin collaborating and pooling resources so all Americans have access to humanities programming, she added.
Five other states have already joined the initiative — Washington, Iowa, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Montana, according to Gerhardt.
Humanities North Dakota will still provide the same programs moving forward, though the current plan is to cut the number of events by about half, Gerhardt said. The nonprofit's programs, which include online classes, book talks, lectures and more, reached an estimated 24,000 people last year.
Congress created the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1965 and appropriates money for grants to humanities councils across the U.S.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
13 minutes ago
- The Hill
Newsom: Pentagon lying over LA to justify National Guard deployment
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Monday accused the Defense Department of 'lying to the American people' in justifying deploying National Guard troops to the state to quell Los Angeles protests against federal immigration raids, asserting that the situation intensified only when the Pentagon deployed troops. 'The situation became escalated when THEY deployed troops,' Newsom posted to X, referring to the Pentagon. 'Donald Trump has manufactured a crisis and is inflaming conditions. He clearly can't solve this, so California will.' Newsom was responding to a post from DOD Rapid Response on X, a Pentagon-run account, which claimed that 'Los Angeles is burning, and local leaders are refusing to respond.' President Trump on Saturday deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area amid the ICE protests, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying the decision was made due to 'violent mobs' attacking 'Federal Law Enforcement Agents carrying out basic deportation operations.' While protests have intensified in recent days, devolving at times into violence, the majority of gatherings have been largely peaceful. Still, California National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, with some 300 deployed on the ground later that day at three locations: Los Angeles proper, Paramount and Compton. White House officials have sought to highlight images of burning vehicles and clashes with law enforcement to make the case that the situation had gotten out of control. 'The people that are causing the problem are professional agitators. They're insurrectionists. They're bad people. They should be in jail,' Trump told reporters on Monday. In addition, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to deploy approximately 500 U.S. Marines to the city, with U.S. Northern Command on Sunday confirming the service members were 'prepared to deploy.' The use of American troops has rankled California officials, who have said the federal response 'inflammatory' and said the deployment of soldiers 'will erode public trust.' Newsom also has traded insults with Hegseth, calling him 'a joke,' and that the idea of deploying active duty Marines in California was 'deranged behavior.' 'Pete Hegseth's a joke. He's a joke. Everybody knows he's so in over his head. What an embarrassment. That guy's weakness masquerading as strength. . . . It's a serious moment,' Newsom said in an interview with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen. The tit-for-tat continued when chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell then took to X on Monday to attack Newsom. 'LA is on FIRE right now, but instead of tackling the issue, Gavin Newsom is spending his time attacking Secretary Hegseth,' Parnell wrote. 'Unlike Newsom, [Hegseth] isn't afraid to lead.' Newsom, who has formally demanded the Trump administration pull the National Guard troops off the streets, has declared the deployment 'unlawful' and said California will sue the Trump administration over its actions. 'There is currently no need for the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles, and to do so in this unlawful manner and for such a lengthy period is a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation,' David Sapp, Newsom's legal affairs secretary, wrote in a letter to Hegseth on Sunday. 'Accordingly, we ask that you immediately rescind your order and return the National Guard to its rightful control by the State of California, to be deployed as appropriate when necessary.' In the past 60 years, a U.S. president has only on one occasion mobilized a state's National Guard troops without the consent of its governor to quell unrest or enforce the law. That was in 1965, when former President Lyndon Johnson sent Guard members to Selma, Ala., to protect civil rights protesters there.
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Kansas abortion clinic leader was ready for Missouri abortion ban, fears it won't be short-lived
Kathryn Boyd, the new CEO and president of the Wichita-based abortion clinic Trust Women, appeared on the Kansas Reflector podcast to discuss how Missouri's abortion ban might affect Kansans. (Submitted) TOPEKA — In May, as Kathryn Boyd began her new role as president and CEO of the Trust Women clinic in Wichita, one of the first conversations she had with the clinic's leaders was how to deal with a new ban in Missouri and what it might mean for Kansas. A late-May decision from a Missouri judge triggered an all-out ban on abortion in the state, but that wasn't much of a surprise to Kansas abortion providers who were preparing for the worst. The majority of abortion patients in Kansas already come from out of state, and now, Trust Women is making its physicians more available and expanding its hours to brace for an influx. 'This is a case of lawmakers who, despite what Missourians voted for, have decided that they're going to just throw that out the window and do what they want anyway,' Boyd said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. 'So I think my first reaction was like, OK, here we go again.' 'Before the ban, Missourians were able to receive abortion care in major cities, reversing years of restrictions implemented by state lawmakers. Those rulings came after voter approval of a constitutional amendment in November enshrining reproductive freedom in the state constitution. All of that was undone in a two-page ruling last month from Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Russell, who ordered Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang to vacate the December and February decisions and reevaluate the case, restoring a ban on abortions and restricting facility licensing. Health centers in Missouri provided care to people who wouldn't have to travel as far as they do now, Boyd said. Following the anger, fear and worry in the wake of the decision in Missouri, Boyd said the primary focus of Trust Women is to expand access. The clinic's message, she said, is, 'We're still here.' 'We're still providing care. We need to expand, and we need support. You know, that's really what it comes down to. And I think that that is a similar story of many, many providers throughout the country, regardless of what state they're in,' Boyd said. However, her fear is that the ban won't be short-lived. Boyd, who has worked in the field of abortion and reproductive care for years, entered the top job at Trust Women about a year after intense turmoil within the clinic. Reports of mass resignations and multiple leadership shakeups led the clinic to temporarily close its doors. Boyd, though she wasn't working at the clinic at the time, describes it as 'very, very hard' for the organization. 'Coming in after a culture shock like that can be really challenging for any leader,' Boyd said. 'Making sure that I come in with that in the back of my mind, I don't want that trauma to, like, dictate what we do going forward, but it definitely is like a side dish.' Her goal is to create a culture of transparency and collaboration, and that requires building back trust and listening, she said.
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's broad definition of ‘insurrection' looms over Los Angeles
In September 2020, President Donald Trump suggested he was hamstrung to crack down on at-times-violent racial justice demonstrations in cities like Portland, Oregon. 'Look, we have laws. We have to go by the laws,' Trump said at an ABC News town hall, adding: 'We can't call in the National Guard unless we're requested by a governor.' Trump noted there was one way he could do that – by invoking the Insurrection Act – but added that 'there's no reason to ever do that, even in a Portland case.' Something has clearly changed since then. Trump this weekend became the first president in about 60 years to call in the National Guard without a request from a governor – to help quell protests in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. He did so without invoking the Insurrection Act – the 1807 law that allows the president to deploy American soldiers to police US streets in extreme circumstances. That means the guard has limited authorities that don't include law enforcement, as CNN legal analyst Steve Vladeck noted. Even that more limited decision, though, has been criticized as overzealous and heavy-handed by some experts, given fears it could inflame the situation. unknown content item - But Trump has clearly left open the possibility of ratcheting things up and possibly even doing what he said five years ago there was 'no reason to ever do': invoking the Insurrection Act to deal with demonstrators. Northern Command said Sunday that 500 US Marines were on 'prepared to deploy' status. Trump was asked Sunday whether the situation was an insurrection, and he said no. But just after 10 p.m. ET, he posted on Truth Social: 'Paid insurrectionists!' The president again used the term on Monday, telling reporters upon his return to the White House that the 'people that are causing the problem are professional agitators' before going on to call them 'insurrectionists.' Top White House adviser Stephen Miller has been calling the situation in Los Angeles an insurrection for days. And indeed, for Trump, Miller and their allies, the bar for 'insurrection' appears quite different than it was five years ago. After many labeled the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol an insurrection, Trump and MAGA have spent years applying that label extremely broadly to other things. The idea seems to have been to 'whatabout' the term and water it down by suggesting other events are the 'real' insurrections – like the protests after George Floyd's murder. But Trump's broad definition of that term looms large as the administration considers something he's long entertained: dispatching the military on US soil. It has almost seemed like Trump and Co. see themselves surrounded by insurrections. Among the situations Trump has previously attached the 'insurrection' label to: Antifa ('they're causing insurrection') His baseless claims of a 'stolen' 2020 election ('the real insurrection happened on November 3rd') Unspecified enemies within the United States ('insurrectionists roam free') A border influx ('when you talk about insurrection, what they're doing, that's the real deal') Then-President Joe Biden ('I'm not an Insurrectionist … Crooked Joe Biden is!!!') Miller – a key figure in the White House on such matters – has appended that label to many of these things and more. He's most often used it in relation to the border under Biden. But he's also repeatedly accused judges who ruled against Trump of a 'legal insurrection.' He's called pro-Palestinian demonstrators a 'pro-Hamas insurrection.' And he accused those who protested the Supreme Court in 2022 – including in some cases apparently illegally at justices' homes – of waging an 'open insurrection.' It's worth emphasizing that many of these things don't qualify as insurrections. While Trump and his allies balked at people labeling January 6 an insurrection, there's little doubt that it met the definition. That word is generally defined as a violent revolt or rebellion against the government. The attack on the US Capitol was a violent attempt to effectively change the makeup of that government by overturning the election result – and by attacking an actual seat of power. In other words, an insurrection isn't about the level of violence; it's about the target and purpose of it. Merely protesting or even engaging in violence while doing so doesn't automatically make something an insurrection. Nor do adverse court rulings and an influx of undocumented immigrants constitute a rebellion. Of course, Trump has shown he's more than happy to stretch the bounds of words and the law in his quest to expand his power and go after perceived enemies. The question from here is why Trump hasn't gone there on invoking the Insurrection Act. He and Miller have now invoked that specific word multiple times in reference to the situation in Los Angeles, and preparing the Marines to possibly come in suggests this is very much on the table. Perhaps the White House has some qualms about the politics of what could come from the more in-your-face federal presence Trump has spent years entertaining. Or perhaps, as Vladeck wagers, the initial deployment of the National Guard could be a precursor. 'In other words, it's possible that this step is meant to both be and look modest,' Vladeck wrote in his newsletter Saturday, 'so that, if and when it 'fails,' the government can invoke its failure as a basis for a more aggressive domestic deployment of troops.' Only time will tell. But we're clearly operating in a very different political world than we were five years ago. Trump seems to have developed a very broad sense of what constitutes an insurrection and plenty of reasons to potentially do what he said 'there's no reason to ever do.' Indeed, he's already gone further than he did before.
