President Trump’s administration is gearing up to cut $10.5 trillion in government spending over the next 10 years, according to the Hill. The first wave of these cuts would include the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, two agencies of great value to communities around the nation. President Trump shouldn’t discontinue their funds from the federal budget, as the effects of doing so would hit close to home in many of these communities — including our own.
Charlottesville and the University have benefited significantly from the NEA and NEH throughout the years. Last September, the University hosted the NEH’s 50th anniversary with a four-day open forum which explored how the humanities form part of the public sphere. The forum brought together distinguished literary figures like Sir Salman Rushdie and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in Charlottesville — which is also home to the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, an organization that received 21 percent of its $6.2 million budget from the NEH last year. These types of efforts facilitated by the NEH have helped the arts and humanities continue to flourish in our community.
These agencies have also directly aided professors on Grounds. Prof. Lisa Reilly, chairwoman of the University’s Department of Architectural History, recently received an NEH grant to direct two week-long workshops at Monticello. A total of 60 K-12 teachers from across the country attended the NEH-funded symposium about integrating local historic sites into their curriculum. This case provides a small glimpse into the valuable opportunities the NEH and NEA offer the educational community through their respective budgets. Disregarding them as waste is yet more evidence of how out of touch President Trump’s administration is with communities such as Charlottesville.
Doing away with these two agencies would represent a complete disregard for the contributions the arts and humanities have made to many aspects of American life. The NEA and NEH, which are asking Congress for almost $150 million each in the upcoming budgetary year, fund numerous local arts and humanities projects. Their grants also help support many libraries and museums around the country. Without these agencies, countless projects rooted in the arts throughout the United States and in our University community would disappear.
As students, we should be concerned about the detrimental effects the elimination of the NEA and NEH would have on our fellow peers, teachers and artists. Given that the agencies’ budgets over the next decade only comprise 0.03 percent of the total budget cuts proposed, President Trump should instead seek to maximize savings — while also preserving the arts and humanities.
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