A letter to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the United States has been signed by more than 460 visual artists, dancers and poets in protest of an executive order from the Trump administration which states that arts organisations cannot use federal funds to promote ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI) or ‘gender ideology’. The names of the signatories have not been made public.
All applicants for NEA grants are required not to operate any programmes that promote DEI and therefore violate federal anti-discrimination laws, while they must also pledge adherence to the executive order signed in January decreeing ‘two sexes, male and female’ as American policy, which has been called an attack on the transgender community by human rights groups.
This February, the NEA also cancelled its ‘Challenge America’ programme, which offered grants for small organisations who ‘extend the reach of the arts to underserved groups/communities’, replacing it instead with a programme seeking ‘projects that celebrate the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity by honoring the semiquincentennial of the United States of America’.
The letter, organised by theatre director Annie Dorsen, demands that the NEA reverse this direction. ‘Trump and his enablers may use doublespeak to claim that support for artists of color amounts to “discrimination” and that funding the work of trans and women artists promotes “gender ideology” (whatever that is),” the letter, which was sent to NEA officials last week, states. ‘But we know better: the arts are for and represent everybody.’
