“Attempted destruction”: Oregon Humanities files lawsuit against DOGE

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Oregon Council for the Humanities – doing business as Oregon Humanities – has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Government Efficiency, claiming that when DOGE “gutted” the National Endowment for the Humanities they did so with “no reasoned analysis and with total disregard for the Congressionally mandated role of councils: To ensure that humanities programs reach every part of the United States.”

According to a complaint filed on May 15, the National Endowment for the Humanities helps to fund humanities councils across the country and has done so “for the past half-century with broad, bipartisan support.”

In March and April 2025, the complaint said that DOGE terminated almost every grant that NEH issued during the previous administration.

In response, the lawsuit is seeking to restore funding from Congress that has been in place since 1965.

“We ask the Court to stop this imminent threat to our Nation’s historic and critical support of the humanities by restoring funding appropriated by Congress,” the complaint said. “This lawsuit challenges the disruption and attempted destruction, spearheaded by DOGE, of the congressionally established federal-state partnership between the NEH and the fifty-six state and jurisdictional humanities councils created under federal statutes and funded by Congress.”

KOIN 6 News has reached out to the Oregon Council for the Humanities for comment, but has not heard back yet.