Judge Colleen McMahon permanently blocked DOGE's cancellation of 1,400-plus NEH humanities grants, ruling ChatGPT-assisted targeting constituted unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York issued a permanent injunction on May 7, 2026, blocking the Trump administration from terminating more than 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities grants totaling over $100 million in congressionally appropriated funds [1]. The ruling, spanning 143 pages, held that the Department of Government Efficiency lacked statutory authority to cancel the grants and that the cancellations violated the First Amendment as unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination [2]. The court further held that the administration could not escape constitutional liability by attributing the targeting decisions to an AI tool, specifically ChatGPT [3].
The case, Authors Guild et al. v. DOGE and the National Endowment for the Humanities, was filed in the Southern District of New York by a coalition of plaintiffs that included the Authors Guild, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Historical Association [2]. The plaintiffs challenged DOGE's use of ChatGPT to scan grant descriptions and flag projects associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion-related content for cancellation [3]. McMahon's ruling resolved cross-motions and entered permanent relief after finding the constitutional and statutory violations could not be remedied through narrower means [1].
The substantive holdings carry wide reach. On the statutory question, the court found DOGE had no legal authority under the NEH's enabling legislation to unilaterally terminate grants that Congress had appropriated [1]. On the First Amendment question, the court concluded that using an AI prompt to identify and defund projects based on their subject matter and viewpoint, specifically DEI-linked content, constituted government-imposed viewpoint discrimination [2]. The ruling rejected the administration's position that outsourcing the identification process to a commercial AI model broke the chain of constitutional accountability [3]. That reasoning sets a direct precedent for any federal agency that deploys algorithmic or AI-assisted tools to make enforcement or funding decisions with expressive consequences.
The administration is expected to appeal to the Second Circuit [1]. Pending any stay order from the appellate court, the permanent injunction requires the government to restore the terminated grants and bars further DOGE-directed cancellations using similar AI-screening methodologies [2]. Affected grant recipients, many of whom had received stop-work orders, will be watching the Second Circuit closely for whether McMahon's constitutional analysis survives appellate scrutiny, particularly on the novel question of AI-delegated government action [3].
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