Not many people know about their state Centers for the Book. Every state and six territories have a Center for the Book, an affiliate to the Library of Congress’ National Center for the Book. The Library of Congress Center for the Book and its 56 affiliates promote reading, libraries, and literacy across the country. I am Utah’s Director for the Center for the Book, and let me honest, it is the coolest job in the world for book lovers. Or it was.
Every month, all 56 affiliates along with the LOC meet on Zoom to share and celebrate the work we do in our home states, but in the last two months our meetings have taken on the gloom of funerals and goodbyes because of DOGE’s dissecting and fund cutting of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and, now, the National Endowment for the Arts.
Most of the centers are housed by Humanities Councils and State Libraries, both of which have been shredded by DOGE’s massive, aggressive, and illegal cuts. Jobs are lost. There are tears. There are goodbyes. And there is a roll call of what date we have been given to be our last. It is somber. It is depressing, and it is gloomy. It is a critical blow to literature and literacy.
It’s somber and gloomy, of course, because we have to say goodbye to friends, we have to say goodbye to jobs we care so much about, and we have to say goodbye to amazing programs like book festivals and literacy programs for underserved communities.
But there is something more to the gloom, something deeper that haunts us. That something deeper came in the middle of the night as a thief and stole funding from not only us but the hundreds of thousands of people we serve every year with a measly combined 56-state and territory budget of 66 million dollars (207 total Congress appropriated grants for 2025 for NEH grants), an average of just over one million dollars per state humanities council.
The gloom that haunts us is there is no consequence to these illegal actions –illegal because they violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. There is no consequence for two young men walking into the NEH office in the night on April 2, demanding access to a list of all Congress-awarded grants, using a non-NEH email to send out termination emails that read:
Dear…,
We regret to inform you that your NEH grant has been terminated. Please see the attached grant termination notice.
With Regards,
Michael McDonald
Acting Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities
McDonald admits that he did not know any of this was happening, did not sign the letter, and did not know that DOGE sent out emails to 75 percent of NEH staff terminating them, along with the letters to all state councils. This sounds like forgery to me. Sounds like fraud. Sounds illegal. Sounds like impoundment.
The gloom darkens because these illegal acts come under the guise and faux protection of executive orders from the Trump Administration and the chainsaw of Elon Musk, a non-elected official. The gloom darkens because Shelly Lowe, the first Native person to lead the NEH left in March “at the direction of President Trump.”
The gloom darkens because we know it’s not just us that suffers the consequences of the slashing of budgets and jobs by late-night computer marauders – our forest-service friends suffer, our civil-servant friends suffer, our BIPOC friends suffer, our artist and writer friends, our…friends suffer.
In 1972, President Nixon’s non-elected team sent men into the Watergate Hotel and Complex. Two years later, Nixon resigned from his presidency after articles of impeachment were recommended because of Nixon’s abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and contempt of Congress, all criminal acts Trump and DOGE have committed here under the law of Executive Orders.
There have been no drafted articles for impeachment by the majority party. There will not be.
The gloom darkens because congress has and will not do anything about any of it, and the Supreme Court has said that if it is found illegal, there can be no prosecution.
The losing of our jobs, to many, is such a tiny thing. The slashing of the NEH, to many, is such a tiny cut that no one will really notice (being very facetious here). But the way in which it was done is not tiny. They way in which we know there will be no retribution or power check from Congress is not tiny.
If Watergate happened now, it would be an Executive Order, and nothing would have been done about it, not from congress, at least, and this makes the gloom so dark.
Note: The following is the current lawsuit against the NEH and the DOGE men who made the cuts.
https://nhalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/NEH-Lawsuit-Complaint-Text.pdf
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
