Underground Railroad Education Center (UREC) in Albany, New York asserts in a lawsuit Friday that the Trump administration through the National Endowment for the Humanities unlawfully terminated its federal grant on the racially motivated bias, pointing to President Donald Trump‘s efforts to
dismantle diversity-focused initiatives.
The lawsuit alleges that the National Endowment for the Humanities’ cancellation of a $250,000 grant amounted to viewpoint and racial discrimination, violating the First and Fifth Amendments, respectively. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of New York and calls for the funds to be reinstated.
The Trump administration has faced criticism and legal action for efforts to alter historical narratives surrounding the Underground Railroad and slavery. For example, National Park Service (NPS) websites have removed mentions of Harriet Tubman, “enslaved” people, and the Fugitive Slave Act.
The suit cited President Trump’s January 2025 executive order that required federal agencies to eliminate any operations supporting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within 60 days.
The 40-page brief outlined 1,400 grants that were terminated in early April 2025 “for their conflict with President Trump’s EOs and the new agency priorities adopted in their wake.”
UREC was assisted in their suit by Lawyers for Good Government. Primary attorney in the filing, Nina Loewenstein, was quoted in news stories as stating there is “just no legitimate basis” for the grant’s cancellation given the exhaustive process of selection which offered the grant in the first place.
Cancelling the grant is contrary to the purpose for which NEH was founded and contradicts the NEH’s own policy for cancelling grants. Specific procedures are to be followed and none of the procedures were followed in this case.
Loewenstein and the team of lawyers volunteering on the case through Lawyers for Good Government, an organization that provides free legal services for civil and human rights cases, argued that the Underground Railroad Education Center is just one of thousands of organizations that have been unlawfully targeted by the Trump administration.
The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses that helped enslaved people escape to freedom in the North and Canada. Albany was a major stop on the Underground Railroad, and the city’s role in the abolitionist movement is well-documented.
You can read the entire complaint here.
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Read more about the Underground Railroad in New York State.
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