Dear cultural colleagues and friends of the humanities,

This morning, I testified before the Connecticut General Assembly Appropriations committee in support of funding for humanities, arts, and tourism.

In that testimony, which you can read in full below, I shared the news I received at midnight last night that our National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) operating support grants have all been terminated. This follows a visit by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff to the NEH offices earlier this week.

We are working with colleagues in Connecticut and across the nation on legal action as well as outreach to our congressional delegation. We will provide more information to you in the coming days. For now, we urge you to take action in three key ways:

• Submit written testimony to the Appropriations committee in support of increased state funding for arts, culture, and tourism, which is now more crucial than ever. On our website, at org/advocacy-action, you can find the link for submitting testimony, instructions for doing so, and a template with talking points. The deadline to submit testimony in support of SB1551 is April 10, 2025.
• Contact our federal Congressional Delegation to urge them to save the National Endowment for the Humanities and funding for the nation’s state Humanities Councils. Click here to easily email your specific Senator and Representative with one click.
• Share the above action items with your audiences through emails and social media so that this urgent message is heard loud and clear and amplified through your networks.

We know that this is a stressful time with lots of questions and not many answers. We want you to know that CT Humanities and our partners will continue to advocate on your behalf and amplify the work that you do. Your work matters and is critical to our civic health, our educational attainment, and our quality of life in Connecticut. This is a time to stand up for what we believe in and what we will fight for.

Years ago, an old friend, John Paul Cutnose (Cheyenne/Arapaho/ Lakota), shared with me his ancestors’ words for times like these: “brave hearts to the front; cowards to the back.”

Be a brave heart.

In support and solidarity,

Jason Mancini, Executive Director, CT Humanities

TESTIMONY, April 3, 2025, from CT Humanities Executive Director Jason Mancini before the Connecticut General Assembly Appropriations Committee:

Dear Sen. Osten, Rep. Walker, Sen. Somers, Rep. Nuccio and Honorable Members of the Appropriations Committee:

I am Jason Mancini, Executive Director of CT Humanities, testifying in support of SB1551. Thank you for raising this important bill at a critical time in both the state’s and nation’s history when our social fabric is being torn apart before our eyes. This, along with HB7176, draws attention to the critical need for cultural investment in the state through arts and humanities. Many before you today and those submitting written testimony will note the economic benefit of investment. It is real and demonstrable. And, while we can offer you endless data to support this argument and had different testimony to offer, I’d like to focus my comments on something more urgent relating to emails I received late last night.

As many of you may know from New York Times reporting, DOGE staffers visited the offices of the National Endowment for the Humanities on Monday. Subsequently, rumors began to spread about grant suspensions and terminations. At midnight last night, I received from the interim chair of NEH a series of letters terminating our operating support grants. These are the funds through which we serve Connecticut’s cultural sector – our grantmaking to museums and cultural organizations, and through our civics initiatives, literature programs, digital projects, and educational resources. This also means that direct NEH grants to CT organizations will cease.

Coupled with the termination of Institute of Museum and Library Service (IMLS) grants and suspension of IMLS staff, this means that millions of dollars of federal funding will no longer be invested in our communities. Almost certainly, funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to the CT Office of the Arts and arts organizations will be next. We don’t know yet what the full impact will be, but it will affect our creative and knowledge economies. I hesitate to be alarmist, but I’ll say it…our rainy day is here.

We stand to lose more than just funding. Cultural investment through arts and humanities in Connecticut makes our state an extraordinary place to live and work, and a place that a growing number of people want to visit. While arts and humanities may feel to some like abstractions – nice but not necessary – they are not. Through arts and humanities, we seed the ground for curiosity, knowledge, and understanding – innovation and the critical thinking skills needed for confronting life’s challenges and opportunities; we provide spaces and places that our residents learn about each other and the world we all share; through arts and humanities, people express themselves, experience others – all key in social/emotional learning and development and combatting societal concerns such as the loneliness epidemic. All the problems, the pain, and suffering we confront; the love, joy, and connection we hope to feel are rooted in and expressed through arts and humanities. While it’s tempting to ascribe a dollar amount to all of this, we should recognize arts and humanities for what they truly are …invaluable.

We bring people together, we help make sense of the world around us, and, in times like these, we are the light in the darkness and the wellspring of wisdom that will guide us through.