AHA joins protest of Trump’s plan for drastic cuts to the NEH

What follows is a mildly revised version of a memo prepared by the National Humanities Alliance relating to the budget proposal recently submitted to Congress by the Trump Administration. The AHA is an active member of the alliance, in addition to housing the National Coalition for History, which coordinates activity among history organizations. I will keep the AHA membership up to date on what is happening here in Washington, and what we would like you to do at various stages. We ask you to act only when we think it’s useful.

Presidential Budget Request Released

This morning the Trump Administration released its Presidential Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2018. This document expands on a budget blueprint released by the Administration in March that called for the elimination of funding for most items imperative to the work of historians and our colleagues in other humanities disciplines. As anticipated, this detailed request reiterates the earlier calls for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute of Museum & Library Services, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the area studies programs known as Title VI and Fulbright Hays.

The Administration requests a small amount of funding for the NEH and IMLS for FY 2018—$42 million for NEH and $23 for IMLS. For NEH, this represents merely the salaries and expenses required to shut down the agency and the amount required to honor pre-existing grant commitments. For IMLS, the money is designated for an “orderly close out.”

The request also calls for the Woodrow Wilson Center to transition to exclusively private funding and requests $7.5 million in FY 2018 to facilitate that transition.

For the other funding priorities, the budget requests no appropriation for FY 2018.

A complete funding chart compiled by the National Humanities Alliance is here.