By J.K. YAMAMOTO
Rafu Shimpo

Dorinne Kondo, a professor of anthropology and of American studies and ethnicity at USC, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities last December, only to be told this month that it was terminated.

She is one of countless individuals and institutions whose work is being defunded as part of the Trump Administration’s elimination of programs related to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). At USC alone, a dozen grantees were impacted.

An April 3 letter to Kondo from Michael McDonald, acting NEH chairman, reads as follows: “This letter provides notice that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is terminating your federal grant … in accordance with the termination clause in your grant agreement. Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities and conditions of the grant application and is subject to termination due to several reasonable clauses …

“For instance, NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the president’s agenda. The president’s Feb. 19, 2025 executive order mandates that the NEH eliminate all non-statutorily required activities and functions …

“Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities. Any objections or appeals to this termination will be managed in strict accordance with the president’s executive orders, including but not limited to …

“EO 14151 (Jan. 20, 2025), ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing’; EO 14168 (Jan. 20, 2025), ‘Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government’; and EO 14190 (Jan. 29, 2025), ‘Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.’

“The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for the administration, and due to exceptional circumstances, adherence to the traditional notification process is not possible. Therefore, the NEH hereby terminates your grant in its entirety effective April 3, 2025.”

“The Art of Vulnerability”

Kondo received an NEH individual fellowship for her work “The Art of Vulnerability: Sexual and Racial Violence, Disability, and Asian/American Performance.” The abstract reads as follows:

“‘The Art of Vulnerability’theorizes vulnerability as an unequally distributed openness to others that is simultaneously openness to harm. Race, gender, sexuality, class, ability — among other fields of power—amplify the traumatic aspects of vulnerability. This project creates a unique archive, primarily of Asian/American performance artists and writers, who respond to the structural vulnerabilities of racial/gendered violence and illness that shape contemporary life in the U.S.

“This book theorizes ‘a(chǎn)tmospheric violence’ as a cultural climate that promotes fear and vigilance among marginalized groups, enabling readers to draw new connections between race, gender, and disability. Spotlighting the arts, ‘The Art of Vulnerability’ advances the extensive scholarship on vulnerability, recognizing it as a necessary artistic skill:a capacity to be cultivated, not a weakness to be disavowed. As they make life and make work, the artists featured here reclaim vulnerability in the wake of trauma.

“‘The Art of Vulnerability’ is animated by a sense of urgency, to help us understand the horror show of our recent history: COVID, pervasive anti-Black, anti-Brown, anti-indigenous, anti-Arab/Muslim and anti-Asian violence, the emergence of #MeToo on the one hand and the death of Roe v. Wadeon the other, the marginalization of the ill and disabled, as well as the assaults on Social Security and Medicare, the misinformation about fluoridation/vaccination, and of course the elimination of research that could help us address these challenging issues.

“Our current historical conditions will create many more who are traumatized, ill, suffering from premature death. Our ability to live and thrive is being dramatically compromised.

“My research theorizes theater and performance as useful models for negotiating the complexities of living in a multiracial society. One of my arguments is that racial conflict can arise from what Gayatri Spivak called ‘zones of sanctioned ignorance’: what we do NOT know about each other’s histories could, in fact, kill us.

“Attacks on education and research promote ignorance. Knowing less is not better.”

Kondo is also a playwright whose works include “Seamless,” which addresses the impact of the wartime incarceration on generations of Japanese Americans.

A Devastating Blow

“Personally, the rescinding of the NEH grant is devastating,” Kondo said. “This grant was hard-won: the culmination of decades of research and lived experience. I am a ‘senior,’ and this is my last scholarly book project. I view it as a career capstone, the distillate of my knowledge, experience, and intellectual commitments over a lifetime.

“I have a disability that involves daily chronic fatigue, so release from teaching and administration is crucial for the completion of this work. This makes my situation unlike that of younger scholars who have many years to apply for grants that might make up for this loss. Realistically, rescinding the NEH grant means that I will not finish the book according to schedule OR, depending on my health, that I may never finish.”

On a positive note, Kondo noted, “Collective action is growing. A rally in Los Angeles recently protested this eviscerating of scholarly research. The National Humanities Alliance, the advocacy organization for the humanities (the NEH and government agencies cannot advocate for themselves) is holding office hours for those whose grants were rescinded.

“Their efforts are directed mostly toward legislators and media, to tell stories about the cancellation and its effects on grantees. It’s heartbreaking to hear about grantees who quit their jobs to pursue research and now have no source of income, and the many humanities programs across the country that are decimated.

“Professional organizations are also making official statements about the rescinding, including the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the American Society for Theatre Research; I have been in contact with the Association for Asian American Studies, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Studies Association about this situation, and there may be statements forthcoming.

“The American Council of Learned Societies, a private, nonprofit federation of 75 scholarly organizations, has issued a statement about this assault on knowledge. Some professional organizations are offering workshops on how educators can deal with these draconian cuts and suppressions of academic freedom.

“Locally, I was especially heartened to see that JANM (Japanese American National Museum) has been vocal in protesting these draconian cuts.

“At USC, the 12 of us whose grants were affected have an email chain to share information. USC says it’s pursuing strategies to advocate for the support of the NEH with legislators, and the Office of General Counsel is apparently investigating the legality of the orders to rescind, though I cannot confirm that officially. I don’t know whether USC is working with other universities to craft alliances and mutually beneficial strategies.

“I intend to contact offices on Monday (April 14) to advocate that they continue to work assiduously toward that end. In addition, I have contacted NEH grantees I know, including those who received their doctorates from my department, as well as colleagues at NYU and other institutions.

“In authoritarian regimes, artists and intellectuals are often the first to be targeted. This recalls Lauren Yee’s play ‘Cambodian Rock Band,’ which was so dazzlingly staged recently at East West Players. (The current regime is attacking the National Endowment for the Arts and the arts in general, as the takeover of the Kennedy Center demonstrates.)

“Our times resonate with the wartime hysteria that gave rise to the incarceration of Japanese Americans and the Cold War hysteria that fostered McCarthyism. Those who would dictate only one way of being inevitably fear cultural critique and new ways of imagining and making worlds.

“We need to stand strong and speak out against these unconscionable assaults on academic and artistic freedom.”

The National Humanities Alliance is directing concerned individuals to the following link: https://p2a.co/DdtlGIT

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