The Department of Government Efficiency’s cancellation of over $100 million in grants was unconstitutional, according to a ruling on Thursday. In the 143-page decision, US District Judge Colleen McMahon cites DOGE’s process for eliminating grants, which involved using ChatGPT to determine if something is related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
The ruling, which stems from a 2025 lawsuit filed by humanities groups, says “it could not be more obvious that DOGE used the mere presence of particular, protected characteristics to disqualify grants from continued funding” from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Judge McMahon cites several instances in which DOGE appeared to use ChatGPT to scan and eliminate grants using their relation to characteristics like race, national origin, religion, and sexuality.
The filing mentions testimony from Justin Fox, a DOGE staffer who worked with his colleague Nate Cavanaugh to eliminate 97 percent of grants under the NEH, in part by relying on ChatGPT’s understanding of DEI:
In addition to asking ChatGPT for signs that something is related to DEI, Fox also asked the AI chatbot to scan NEH grants for what he called “Detection Codes” related to “protected characteristics,” according to the filing:
Judge McMahon writes that DOGE deemed hundreds of grants “wasteful because they related to Blacks, women, Jews, Asian Americans, and Indigenous people,” adding that “the very subjects DOGE treated as markers of waste, lack of merit, or ideological contamination are the subjects that Congress made expressly germane to NEH’s mission.” Some of the grants lumped into the “wasteful” category are related to projects about the Holocaust, civil rights, and an educational experience that would allow participants to “explor[e] indigenous knowledge, culture, and climate.”
McMahon also pushes back on the government’s argument that “there is no real constitutional problem here because any viewpoint-based classification was ChatGPT’s doing, rather than the Government’s:”
In her decision, Judge McMahon ultimately found that DOGE’s elimination of over 1,400 NEH grants was unlawful and unconstitutional, citing violations of the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection law, and DOGE’s lack of authority. McMahon issued an order to reverse their cancellation.
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