Elon Musk’s DOGE ‘blatantly used’ race and gender to execute the largest mass termination of federal grants, judge rules

A federal judge has officially blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with the massive termination of federal grants overseen by the Department of Government Efficiency, ABC News reported. This ruling arrives after U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon declared the actions taken by the office led by Elon Musk to be unlawful. She found that the staffers involved simply lacked the authority to make these sweeping decisions, which had targeted the National Endowment for the Humanities on an unprecedented scale.

It is honestly wild to see how this process was handled. Judge McMahon was very clear in her assessment of the situation, noting that there is no room for debate regarding how these grants were reviewed. She wrote, “There can be no serious dispute that the review process implemented by DOGE did not conform to, or even resemble, NEH’s ordinary grant-review process.”

If you have ever looked into how federal agencies typically manage their grant cycles, you know that this kind of departure from standard procedure is a massive red flag. It turns out that the staffers involved were not even following the established rules of the agency they were gutting. This comes after the DOJ previously admitted that DOGE shared sensitive social security data with an unidentified political advocacy group.

The court found that the DOGE team used specific protected characteristics, including race and gender, as a primary filter for these terminations

Judge McMahon did not mince words when describing this approach. She stated, “Treating Black civil-rights history, Jewish testimony about the Holocaust, the oft-forgotten Asian American experience, the shameful treatment of the children of Native tribes, or the mere mention of a woman as a marker of lack of merit or wastefulness is not lawful.” It is difficult to justify why these topics would be flagged as a sign of wastefulness, and it is clear the court agrees that this methodology was fundamentally flawed.

One specific detail mentioned by the judge highlights just how poorly thought-out this entire initiative was. She pointed out that the government decided to cut funding for grants related to the Holocaust simply because the project focused on the experiences of women who survived Nazi persecution. As Judge McMahon explained, “At a time when the specter of antisemitism has reemerged from the shadows, for our Government to deem a project about Jewish women disfavored because it centered on Jewish cultures and female voices is deeply troubling.”

The origin of this mess goes back to when President Donald Trump returned to office in January. He gave Elon Musk the lead role as an adviser in the newly formed DOGE to cut federal spending. The speed at which they moved was staggering. Within just days of this directive, federal agencies were told to place their DEI staff on leave and shutter related programs across the board.

We learned a lot about the internal logic of this project through depositions released back in March. Two DOGE employees, Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh, were the ones behind the effort. Neither of these men had any experience working in government before they joined the department, as both came from backgrounds in tech and finance. During their testimony, they admitted that they were trying to cut what they called useless agencies to help reduce the federal deficit.

The exchange between an attorney and Nate Cavanaugh during the deposition was particularly telling. When asked if he regretted the fact that people lost important income they relied on for their livelihoods, Cavanaugh replied, “No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero.” When the attorney followed up by asking if they actually succeeded in reducing that deficit, Cavanaugh had to admit, “No, we didn’t.”

The approach they took to identify these grants was also incredibly basic. Cavanaugh explained that they simply filtered for specific terms like DEI, DEIA, Equity, Inclusion, BIPAC, and LGBTQ. They were essentially using ChatGPT to scan for keywords rather than actually reading the grant proposals or understanding the work they were cutting. While they claimed the final decision was up to the head of each agency, the judge’s ruling makes it clear that the entire process was fundamentally tainted.

The nonprofit organizations that fought back against these cuts are rightfully celebrating this victory. They argue that the court has finally affirmed the vital role that humanities research plays in a healthy democracy.

Joy Connolly, who serves as the President of the American Council of Learned Societies, put it perfectly in her statement. She said, “The humanities are not a luxury. They are how a democracy understands itself. Today’s decision is a step toward honoring the will of Congress and our mission as a nation — to seek the truth, know ourselves, and build a better future on that knowledge.”