A branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federal organization that provides funding to many major arts centers across the US.
In a lawsuit filed on Thursday, the ACLU’s Rhode Island offshoot filed a suit on behalf of several theaters, claiming that the NEA’s new policy that applicants not “promote gender ideology” will limit what kinds of works can be shown. The NEA adopted that policy was adopted after an executive order issued in January by President Donald Trump.
Filed in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island, the complaint says that the executive order was an “unlawful and unconstitutional exercise of executive power that has sowed chaos in the funding of arts projects across the United States.”
Although the lawsuit refers mostly to theatrical productions, its allegations could also impact art exhibitions featuring work by nonbinary and transgender artists. Most major art institutions in the US, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Museum of Modern Art, receive NEA funding in varying amounts.
The suit mentions several theatrical productions that the ACLU claims are being impacted by the “gender ideology” executive order.
One such production, to be staged by Rhode Island Latino Arts, was a remake of Faust, now with a protagonist that the suit described as being “gay and queer.” A nonbinary actor was being considered for the role, the lawsuit said, so the theater decided not to apply for an NEA grant because the production could be seen as an example of promoting “gender ideology.”
“All of our projects are designed to welcome and celebrate a diverse array of identities and experiences, especially those of recent immigrants and those from the Latinx and LGBTQ+ communities,” Marta V. Martinez, executive director of Rhode Island Latino Arts, said in a statement. “That is the principle RILA was founded on, and we can’t be bullied into compromising our values.”
Another impacted organization was the Boston-based Theater Offensive company. According to the ACLU, the Theater Offensive wanted to mount Smoke, a play written by Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, who is trans. The play, which was read publicly in 2024, “explores love, found family, motherhood, and healing, and reveals the complexities of transgender life,” per the lawsuit. The Theater Offensive wants to perform the play with a cast that includes two trans actors in 2026, but it said that with the NEA “gender ideology” stipulations currently in place, it cannot seek funding from that organization right now.
Giselle Byrd, executive director of the Theater Offensive, said in a statement, “This pledge from the NEA further attacks the rights and dignity of trans and nonbinary people, silencing our voices at a time when they are most needed.”
A spokesperson for the NEA did not respond to an ARTnews request for comment.
The suit comes amid widespread concern about whether the policies of the Trump administration will lead to a crackdown on what kinds of art can be shown. Signs of this already arrived in federally run museums such as the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution, both of which have begun dismantling their DEI efforts.
Further evidence could be found this week at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C., which canceled a show of artists of the African diaspora that was to include works by Martin Puryear, Elizabeth Catlett, and Amy Sherald, among other well-known figures. Another show at that same institution, by artist Andil Gosine, was also called off. Though the museum has not commented on why the shows were removed from its schedule, many have read the cancellations as a response to the Trump administration’s clampdown on all things seen as DEI-related.
Outside the field of visual art, Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center, a key performing arts venue in Washington, D.C., has also raised alarm. Earlier this week, Hamilton, the Lin Manuel-Miranda musical, canceled a planned run there, a decision that Miranda attributed to Trump’s recent actions.
