Brian Boyles, executive director of Mass Humanities, published an essay in The Boston Globe addressing funding and staffing cuts at the National Endowment for the Humanities. In “A noble endeavor for a Great Society is being abandoned” Boyles writes:
“The organizations we support are not bastions of the elite. From libraries in Brockton to human service centers in Springfield, our partners are beloved by their audiences, but none of them can fall back on billion-dollar endowments.
Still, we are lucky to live in Massachusetts. NEH provides 35 percent of Mass Humanities’ annual budget, and we may still find private funders to help us fill the NEH gap. For humanities councils in cash-strapped states or states with political climates hostile to cultural funding, the NEH cuts will be death sentences. Layoffs, cancellation of grant-making, and the end of public programs are already underway in red and blue states alike.
There is still hope of stopping the NEH cuts. Humanities councils enjoy bipartisan support. But we live in a historically dangerous moment. In 1965, federal funding for the humanities began with a clear statement, made publicly in the presence of great artists and enshrined in legislation declaring that our democracy ‘cannot rest solely upon superior power, wealth, and technology.’ In 2025, the people running our government tell us that the humanities are nothing more than spam. Though clumsy and callous, that message was clear.”
