A federal judge ordered the restoration of millions in National Endowment for the Humanities grants, ruling that the mass termination of more than 1,400 approved awards was unconstitutional and violated First Amendment rights. The case stemmed from the National Endowment for the Humanities cancellations carried out in 2025 after a Trump administration effort associated with the Department of Government Efficiency. Judge Colleen McMahon found the terminations lacked statutory authority and created a broad “chilling effect” on protected expression, alongside harm to ongoing research, publication, and humanities programming. The ruling also referenced equal protection concerns tied to viewpoint-based criteria. Discovery materials cited by the court included claims that DOGE staff used ChatGPT to flag grants as potentially conflicting with the administration’s anti-DEI executive orders, with some grants identified using keywords related to “history,” “culture,” and “identity.” The judge said DOGE staff lacked relevant humanities experience. The higher education impact is immediate: the restoration process affects the flow of funds into academic research and campus-adjacent humanities programming, while the ruling sets a procedural and constitutional limit on how federal agencies can use automated or proxy-based screening tools to allocate grants.