Museum Grants Terminated by Trump Reinstated After Court Order
But the ripple effects of the abrupt fund withdrawals are still being felt, organizations say.
Following a court ruling late last month, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will reinstate federal grants previously cancelled under the Trump administration.
The IMLS committed to restoring all grants last week after a US District Court judge in Rhode Island ruled in favor of 21 state attorneys general. The coalition sued the Trump administration in April over the dismantling of federal agencies named in an executive order.
In May, the Rhode Island judge ordered the grants restored, finding that Trump's executive order had violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The preliminary ruling only restored IMLS grants for the 21 states represented in the lawsuit, which included New York, California, Michigan, and Massachusetts.
But that ruling did not apply to other states, like Indiana, home to the Evansville African American Museum. The institution's executive director, Kori Miller, told Hyperallergic in an email that its grant for “exhibitions and visual arts and expression programs for school-aged children” was now available. According to the IMLS website, the museum was awarded $48,000 in 2024 for the project.
Last week's ruling permanently affirmed the court's earlier decision, and shortly after, the IMLS announced that it "has reinstated all federal grants."
Earlier this year, the Trump administration named the IMLS on a list of "unnecessary" agencies, which also included the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Minority Business Development Agency.
While museums and libraries welcome the news that the funds are returning, in many instances, the ripple effect of the initial grant terminations will continue to be felt, particularly because IMLS grants are reimbursement-based, organizations said.
A spokesperson for the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) in New York told Hyperallergic that the May ruling unfroze the agency's $71,000 grant for its Sanctuary City Project, a photography program for first-generation immigrants.
But by the time CPW's grant was reinstated, the organization had already spent $62,000, the spokesperson said. The photography organization also lost grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
"These grants are substantial, and the loss of this type of funding has disastrous consequences across the board, especially for long-term planning and budgeting," the spokesperson wrote in an email to Hyperallergic.
