Federal judge rules against Trump administration's anti-trans art censorshiphttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/09/federal-judge-rules-against-administrations-anti-trans-art-censorship/ 🔗John Russell (25 Sep 2025)
A federal judge in Rhode Island handed four arts organizations a victory against the Trump administration in their challenge to the National Endowment for the Arts' (NEA) implementation of one of the president's anti-trans executive orders.
In his September 19 decision, district court judge William E. Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the NEA's recent policy requiring all grant applicants to certify that "federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology" violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), according to Erin in the Morning.
President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14168 on January 20, the first day of his second term in office... Among its anti-trans provisions, the order requires all federal agencies, including the NEA, to "take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding" of what it terms "gender ideology" ...
As Erin in the Morning reports, in his decision, Smith sided with the arts organizations on the first two counts. Smith ruled that NEA's policy of considering whether projects "promote gender ideology" in its grant approval process "violates the First Amendment because it is a viewpoint-based restriction on private speech." Additionally, the policy, which grants NEA's chairperson sole authority to implement Trump's anti-trans order, violates the APA by exceeding the NEA chairperson's authority under the NEA's authorizing statute, by its "arbitrary and capricious" nature.
