Judge rules DOGE cancellation of humanities grants was unconstitutional | Hacker News Reader

Judge rules DOGE cancellation of humanities grants was unconstitutional

apnews.com

66 points165944709116 comments

> McMahon also rejected the government’s argument that there was no constitutional problem because any viewpoint classification was ChatGPT’s doing, and not the government’s.

> “ChatGPT was the Government’s chosen instrument for purposes of this project, and DOGE’s use of AI to identify DEI-related material neither excuses presumptively unconstitutional conduct nor gives the Government carte blanche to engage in it,” she wrote.

This is a really bold argument. Could they have gotten away with "we hired contractors to do all the viewpoint tagging and just defunded whatever they said"? I feel like that should still count as the government doing it, given they instructed someone else to make a decision on x and y grounds. But why would a lawyer even think it's a defense?

This implies that the government respects the rules or at the very least pretends to do so. To me it's pretty clear that the US federal government has moved beyond that.

From the ruling (https://www.historians.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/291-Me...):

>The second stage of the grant termination process began on March 12, 2025, when Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh – identified in the record as members of DOGE’s “Small Agencies Team” – met with NEH leadership, including McDonald and Wolfson… Prior to joining the Trump Administration, neither Fox nor Cavanaugh had any experience in government, public grant administration, private grant administration, or reviewing humanities projects for scholarly merit… In fact, as both were in their twenties, they did not have much experience in anything at all – certainly not in anything remotely related to the humanities.

This is wild. Trump administration gave a bunch of young adults access to decide about millions and millions of tax money. No guardrails, no checks, no competence.

It's not wild. This was in the news while it was happening. It was all remarked upon and leaked. If you're just now catching on, I'm very sorry to say you're a major part of the problem

It's wild, but not new. I also live in Europe and I am not an US citizen of which at least 50% are part of the problem.

This is a consequence of fascism's adoption of AI and its utter contempt for expertise. Why would we need to hire experts when the robot is magical and all you need to do is ask it like you would ask a genie?

Up and down the Trump admin (and beyond) we see this breathless adoption of AI as if it is already some sort of God.

What will be the consequences?

I am sure -- the government will appeal and the supreme court will decide it is all fine, because that's how founding fathers intended.

Even if the Supreme Court says they need to fund the USAID, it won't bring back the hundreds of thousands who died. https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hund...

The US taxpayer is a not a slush fund for global healthcare.

We are already $39T+ in debt. Where does it end?

Dude, the funding of USAID yielded so much soft power for 0.3% of the federal budget. You indolent, unempathetic monster.

You want to cut the federal debt, where should we look to where the wealth has been hoarded?

Probably nothing and it’ll also do nothing for the many people whose lives were drastically impacted by those cuts.

The funding will be restored, assuming the decision survives an appeal.

Administration decides the constitution doesn't spark joy, yeet

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