A US federal judge has criticised some terminations carried out under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), saying the process was unlawful, poorly designed and “deeply troubling”.US District Judge Colleen McMahon ruled on Thursday that the mass cancellations of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) could not stand, blocking the Trump administration from enforcing them and criticising how they were carried out.“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,” Judge McMahon wrote.The court found that DOGE staff lacked proper authority to make the decisions and said the terminations were carried out in a way that ignored established procedures. In her ruling, the judge concluded that protected characteristics were improperly used during the review process.“Judge McMahon declared the terminations unlawful, concluded that the DOGE staffers lacked the authority to make those decisions, and blocked the Trump administration from carrying out the grant terminations.” She added that the method used by DOGE was discriminatory in practice.“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,” she said.The judge also focused on specific cuts to projects connected to Holocaust studies, saying the reasoning behind them was concerning.“At a time when the spectre of antisemitism has reemerged from the shadows, for our Government to deem a project about Jewish women disfavoured because it centred on Jewish cultures and female voices is deeply troubling,” she said.The ruling comes after several non-profit organisations challenged the grant cancellations in court, arguing that the cuts undermined humanities research and ignored Congress’s intent. They welcomed the decision, calling it an important defence of cultural and academic work.The case centred on actions taken after Donald Trump returned to the White House and empowered Musk to help drive federal cost-cutting efforts through the newly created DOGE, along with Ohio Republican primary Vivek Ramaswamy. Agencies were instructed early on to suspend diversity-related programmes and staff.Court documents and depositions released earlier this year showed how two DOGE employees, Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh, helped identify grants for cancellation using keyword filters. Those included terms such as “DEI”, “Equity”, “Inclusion” and “LGBTQ”.Cavanaugh acknowledged in testimony that the approach was blunt, though he defended the broader aim of cutting spending.“You don’t regret that people might have lost important income … to support their lives?” an attorney asked Cavanaugh.“No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero,” Cavanaugh said.“Did you reduce the federal deficit?” the attorney asked.“No, we didn’t,” Cavanaugh said.Neither Fox nor Cavanaugh had worked in government before joining DOGE.
