Court Rules Against Trump Order That NEA Should Deny Grants Over 'Gender Ideology'

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration rule that the National Endowment for the Arts should withhold grants from applicants deemed to promote “gender ideology” violated the First Amendment. The new decision reveals that the judge deemed the policy as viewpoint discrimination, WPRI reports.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Rhode Island Latino Arts, National Queer Theater, The Theater Offensive, and Theatre Communications Group. The theatre companies and artist groups filed the suit to challenge the NEA policy, which was launched following an executive order from Trump.

U.S. District Senior Judge William Smith has decided that the NEA policy discriminated against artists’ free speech rights. He wrote that while the chairperson of the NEA can have the final say in who receives grants, they are unable to deny an application "simply because they promote disfavored views."

“The NEA was designed not as an instrument of political communication but as a vehicle for private expression,” Smith writes in the decision. “The Court concludes that the final notice violates the First Amendment because it is a viewpoint-based restriction on private speech.”

The Trump-signed executive order that led to the NEA policy defined “gender ideology” as permitting “the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa.” It demanded that federal funds not be allowed to promote these views.