BROOKINGS Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency has eliminated federal funding for state humanities councils, including the Brookings-based South Dakota Humanities Council.
We found out last week. As crazy as it sounds, we found out through unofficial means because the email actually went into our spam folder, Christina Oey, executive director of the South Dakota Humanities Council, said. The only reason I even thought to check my spam folder was because other executive directors were sounding the alarm. So then we found out that our federal funding was 100% cut. Thats about 73% of our budget about $950,000 we lost.
There are 56 humanities councils, representing the states, Washington, D.C., and five U.S. territories. Oey said the funding was approved in the federal budget and reaffirmed last month when congress passed a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown.
All of us are contacting our attorneys general and giving them a heads up about what is happening, because quite frankly this is not a partisan issue, she said. Nothing official has been filed yet, but I do know a lot of folks are looking at the legality of this. Not only was the continuing resolution passed, but the National Endowment for the Humanities was created by an act of Congress. This cut came from DOGE. They are not elected officials.
She has reached out to the states congressional delegation.
We are fortunate in South Dakota in that our congressional delegation is very supportive of the humanities, Oey said. Dusty Johnsons office contacted me back immediately, asked for more information, said they want to stay on top of this issue and will be forwarding our concerns to the White House.
She said they received similar support from Sen. Mike Rounds office.
They said they didnt know this was happening, and they expressed support for the humanities, Oey said. They asked us to keep them in the loop and said theyll be forwarding our concerns to the White House. We are working with Senator Thunes office, but being the senate majority leader he is pretty busy.
She said the council has reserves and will spend that money carefully.
We have a board meeting this week where were going to decide exactly what the next steps are, Oey said. As of right now, nothing is going to change. Were still going to hold our annual Festival of Books; however, the scale may be different. There may be some significant changes to our grant-making as well. We give out around $150,000 to $200,000 in grant dollars. That may be changing.
This years Festival of Books is Sept. 26-28 in Spearfish. Jennifer Widman is Center for the Book director with the Humanities Council and has organized the festival since 2012.
Were trying to be as optimistic as we can, she said. (Losing the festival would be) a huge loss to the literary community in South Dakota. Readers get to meet authors and hear from authors they might not otherwise get a chance to see. Plus all of the people in South Dakota who are writing their own stories come to the festival to talk to other writers.
They are expecting between 5,000 and 7,000 visitors at the festival and estimate there will be $3 worth of tourism spending for every $1 they invest.
Thats our best estimate right now, based on some general tourism numbers, Widman said. But it goes farther than that because (the cuts) also affect our Young Readers Program, where every year we select a title and create a special edition of 15,000 copies of that book to give away to every third grader in the state. We are the only organization that does that at that crucial age. We depend on a lot of federal money and fundraising to be able to do that.
She said the Humanities Council has a congressional mandate to distribute these funds.
It is in the founding legislation of the NEH that their mission is to distribute federal funding to the states to organizations like ours who know the people, know the needs, and are able to distribute that money to communities, organizations and individuals, Widman said. The federal government doesnt have the knowledge or relationships to be able to do that. We do, and I think that is actually a very efficient way to use federal money and shouldnt come under the purview of DOGE.
She said the humanities are essential for a civil society.
They are the study of all things related to human activities, Widman said. We do need to understand our past, and history helps us with that. We do need to be active citizens, and civil conversation and civic education helps with that. It improves the quality of life and the quality of a civil society in a very significant way.
Both Widman and Oey said the council welcomes any support right now.
The first thing you can do is visit our website at sdhumanities.org and make a gift, Oey said. Also, any form of advocacy right now makes a huge difference. Please contact your congressional delegation, but also contact your state legislators because this is going to have an impact on their districts as well. The little libraries in the smallest corners of South Dakota will be definitely be impact by this. Our elected officials need to know about that.
Contact Jay Roe at [email protected].
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