DOGE Staffers Allegedly Cut LGBTQIA+ Grants With ChatGPT Despite Not Understanding DEI
Two former staffers of the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Justin Fox and Nathan Cavanaugh, have testified under oath that they allegedly used the AI chatbot ChatGPT to review and cancel federal grants at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the US government body that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to museums, archives, and public humanities research.
Their depositions, recorded in January 2026, were released publicly in early March as part of a federal lawsuit. Over 1,400 grants were allegedly terminated, removing tens of millions of dollars in funding.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association, and the Modern Language Association. The organisations allege that DOGE staffers violated the Federal Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment by flagging grant descriptions as DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) solely because they included terms such as “BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour),” “homosexual,” “LGBTQ,” and “Tribal.”
A chatbot is making the decision
Fox allegedly used a short, blunt prompt to process hundreds of grant descriptions: “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.'” He acknowledged that the term DEI was never formally defined when asking the system to evaluate applications.
Fox also built a spreadsheet that ran grant summaries through ChatGPT to generate explanations for why a project might relate to DEI. He described it as “only a tool to assist in contextualising,” but acknowledged that tagging a grant as DEI could place it on a path to cancellation.
Neither Fox nor Cavanaugh had prior experience in government or grant administration before joining DOGE. The testimony also revealed how little academic expertise informed the process. Cavanaugh admitted that the two did not consult scholars or the NEH’s peer review system before identifying projects for potential cancellation. Fox came from finance. Cavanaugh, in his late twenties, had a background in tech start-ups.
The DOGE goons are getting deposed for a lawsuit on behalf of the American History Association and others and holy shit this hurts to watch pic.twitter.com/Oe6MUrYxTz
— Lydia Kauppi (@lydiakauppi) March 11, 2026
What actually got cut
Among the cancelled grants was a public discussion series titled Examining Experiences of LGBTQ Military Service, which aimed to bring veterans and community members together to discuss the experiences of marginalised service members.
When asked why it was flagged, Cavanaugh’s reply was brief: “Because it explicitly says LGBTQ.”
A project on the history of HIV and AIDS activism and prison abolition was also terminated. Fox and Cavanaugh reportedly described it as one of the “craziest” grants.
Beyond LGBTQIA+ content, the lawsuit claims some flagged projects allegedly had no connection to DEI at all, including a documentary about Jewish women forced into slave labour during the Holocaust and an archival project documenting Italian American communities.
The videos that were ordered offline
The deposition footage was uploaded to YouTube by the plaintiff organisations and went viral almost immediately, with clips spreading widely before a judge ordered their removal.
Manhattan federal judge Colleen McMahon ordered the videos pulled from public view after the government filed an emergency submission arguing the footage had been improperly posted and citing harassment, including alleged threats against witness Justin Fox.
The court is set to hold a further hearing on the matter.
By Saturday, a backup of the videos was reportedly already available online as a torrent and on the Internet Archive.
The case continues in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
