A lawsuit filed last May, after the so-called Department of Government Efficiency terminated more than 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities grants, has yielded some absolutely wild revelations.
Thanks to newly released depositions related to the suit, we now know that DOGE staffers, who had no personal academic experience in the humanities, used ChatGPT to identify “DEI” — or diversity, equity and inclusion — initiatives and retroactively cancel their funding.
At DOGE’s behest, ChatGPT ingested the descriptions of all of NEH’s grants, then spat out a spreadsheet with a “Yes/NO DEI?” column and its “DEI rationale.”
This ultimately resulted in the retroactive cancellation of more than $100 million in funds that had already been appropriated, along with the firing of 65% of NEH staff.
According to a release from the plaintiffs, the process violated the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection clause because it explicitly targeted the terms “BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color),” “homosexual,” “LGBTQ,” and “Tribal,” among others.
