Overview
- Depositions from former DOGE staffers Nathan Cavanaugh and Justin Fox describe feeding grant text into ChatGPT with the prompt, “Does the following relate at all to DEI?,” capping replies at 120 characters without defining the term.
- Discovery materials show ChatGPT flagged a $349,000 High Point Museum HVAC award as DEI-related, and the museum’s director says the project was terminated with about 70% of the award recovered through a termination clause.
- A KTVZ/KGW report says more than a thousand NEH awards were cut last spring, eliminating roughly 97% of the then-appropriated humanities grants and halting projects at Oregon institutions.
- Oregon examples include the High Desert Museum losing $750,000 across five grants, affecting exhibits on Indigenous history and climate impacts and forcing the rescission of a job offer.
- The ACLS, AHA, and MLA have sued to restore funding as Mirror US reports DOGE canceled about $100 million in NEH grants and cut 65% of staff, with depositions showing staff struggled to define DEI and conceded the cuts did not reduce the deficit.