On Wednesday, April 2, I received an enthusiastic email from the project directors of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Landmarks project “The Long Road from Brown: School Desegregation in Virginia,” notifying me of my acceptance as a teacher participant in this summer’s workshop, thanks to federal funding from the NEH that supports the professional development of K-12 humanities educators.
“The Long Road from Brown” is a week-long, residential summer institute — to inform future classroom instruction — through which a cohort of educators from across the country gathers with a team of scholars, archivists, and local community caretakers in Richmond, Virginia, to learn from the legacies of Black teachers and students in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and amid the “Massive Resistance” from white opponents that followed the Court’s verdict.
On Friday, April 4, however, and much to my disappointment, I received a follow-up email from the project directors communicating that “this NEH Landmarks program will no longer be offered due to DOGE’s termination of the grant award.” This news comes in the wake of the Department of Government Efficiency’s decision to cut funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities, effectively terminating several current and future grants and projects across the nation.
As a public high school teacher on the Central Coast, as a doctoral student in education at the University at Buffalo, and as a school board trustee serving my local K-8 district in Solvang, my professional growth and aspirations have been indelibly marked by access to opportunities from national humanities-based initiatives. These opportunities have supplemented my formal education, equipping me with subject matter expertise and pedagogical wisdom to enhance and enrich the education I seek to offer students, affirming my commitment to humanities advocacy within my learning communities.
As the current chair of the Ambassadorship Committee within the National Humanities Center’s Teacher Advisory Council, I have the pleasure of serving alongside a passionate collective of 20 educators who recognize the value of the humanities and the importance of offering our youth an education in the humanities, as we assist in the development and facilitation of education programs that support thousands of teachers and students across the United States through on-site programming and virtual webinars.
Academic research, museum curation, and public preservation efforts within the humanities rely upon federal funding. The current administration’s actions demonstrate a belief that the humanities are superfluous, indicative of an indictment of the cultural production and preservation integral to telling the many stories of America and its inhabitants, and our country’s relationship with communities and histories across the globe. The devaluation of a broad sector of disciplines that foster critical thinking, creativity, and communication is deeply disconcerting and, perhaps, a harbinger of further repeals of educational funding to come.
It is crucial that those of us who are alarmed by these executive decisions to cut federal funding for the humanities reach out to our local policymakers and Members of Congress. Organizations such as the National Humanities Alliance provide resources to help facilitate this communication and to keep concerned constituents notified regarding updates in response to our collective advocacy efforts.
Each school day, I witness moments of encounter between my learners and the humanities education they pursue within our English classes. Through an education steeped in the humanities, my students sharpen their critical thinking, hone their communication skills, deepen their content knowledge, and explore the vastness of the human condition across varying social contexts through exposure to rich literature and via rhetorical engagement.
My positionality as a humanities educator has taught me that a humanities education can change lives. I know this, in part, because a humanities education has changed mine.
The views reflected in this piece are solely the author’s own, and do not seek to communicate the views of his employer or institutional affiliates.
Correction: The committee on which Kennedy serves with the National Humanities Center’s Teacher Advisory Counci has 20 members, not 30.
