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Shelly C. Lowe, the first Native American to lead the National Endowment for the Humanities, has left her role at the direction of President Donald Trump.
NEH spokeswoman Paula Wasley confirmed Lowe's departure, and Trump's directive, on Wednesday evening in an email to The Washington Post. Michael McDonald, the agency's general counsel, will serve as acting chairman, the agency said.
The departure comes as Trump has sought to dramatically reshape federal cultural institutions under White House control. He has overhauled leadership at the Kennedy Center and slashed the federal workforce tasked with preserving and maintaining the thousands of art pieces owned by the U.S. government.
Trump has also issued sweeping executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI programs across the federal government, which he has claimed are destructive and divisive.
The NEH was founded in 1965 and is one of the nation's largest funders of humanities programs. Since its inception, it has granted more than $6 billion to museums, schools, libraries, research institutions and more to support humanities work across the country. It received $207 million in funding for fiscal year 2024.
Before heading the agency, Lowe served from 2015 to 2022 as a member of the National Council on the Humanities, the NEH's 26-member advisory body, after President Barack Obama appointed her.
Originally from Ganado, Arizona, Lowe has had an extensive career in academia. She served as executive director of the Harvard University Native American Program, assistant dean in the Yale College Dean's Office and director of the Native American Cultural Center at Yale University.
“It is very important for us to continue to look at history, because history has been told in a number of different ways, depending on who was telling it. History has come forward that we haven't been privy to in the past, and humanities funding and the work that we do through the agency is really helping to bring this forward and to bring it to the American public,” Lowe said in a 2023 interview with The Washington Post.
When asked how she responds to pushback against conversations regarding race, gender and identity, Lowe said that the agency's “founding legislation” is her guiding light.
“We support projects. We support research that creates humanities education and wisdom that is grounded in the humanities,” she said. “So we will always continue to support that and support grants that move our humanities education forward and pointing back to the fact that it's a part of our democracy and it's what makes our democracy strong.”
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