NEH awards $71 million, directs major grants to conservative-aligned humanities programs

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced $71 million in new grants, including nearly $40 million to classical humanities institutes and civic leadership programs that have been promoted by conservatives as a counterweight to liberal-dominated higher education. The awards were made to 84 projects nationwide.

Among the largest awards were three $10 million grants. One $10 million award to the University of Texas is intended to hire 16 faculty members and help "launch academic majors in Strategy and Statecraft and Great Books," another $10 million will provide matching funds to the University of North Carolina to build an endowment for a "world-class civics faculty," and a third $10 million will go to the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education, a network of programs at 17 mostly private schools.

Other sizable grants included $1.7 million for a civics program at the University of South Carolina, $5 million to Ohio State University, $2 million to the Abigail Adams Institute for a project called "supplemental humanities at Harvard," $2 million for fellowships and three writer-in-residence positions at the conservative magazine First Things, and a $60,000 grant to a Dartmouth scholar.

Many of the large grants were noncompetitive, according to two people familiar with the applications. The endowment and its acting chair, Michael McDonald, did not respond to requests for comment.

Key Topics

Culture, Neh, Abigail Adams Institute, Michael Mcdonald, Unc, Trump Administration