By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A federal judge cleared the way on Thursday for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to require arts organizations to certify they will not promote “gender ideology” to obtain grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
U.S. District Judge William Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, denied a request by several arts and theater groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union for a preliminary injunction barring the adoption of such a policy.
Smith said in his ruling that an immediate injunction would be premature because the NEA paused implementation of the new policy pending further review.
“Granting a preliminary injunction in these circumstances would impose significant hardship on the NEA with little practical benefit to plaintiffs,” Smith said, though he added the theater groups could still prevail in their case.
White House representatives and lawyers for the theater groups did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
The NEA, a federal agency offering support and funding for arts projects, first adopted the criterion last month to implement an executive order the Republican president signed upon returning to office on January 20. The order directed the government to recognize only two sexes – male and female – and required agencies to ensure grant funds do not promote “gender ideology.”
Rhode Island Latino Arts, the National Queer Theater, the Theater Offensive and the Theatre Communications Group soon after sued, saying the policy would force them to self-censor to obtain funding and alter the scope of artistic projects that involve transgender characters or LGBTQ actors.
After the lawsuit was filed, the NEA withdrew its certification requirement pending further review, with plans to issue a new policy by April 30. The Trump administration argued the withdrawal of that policy made the case moot.
But lawyers for the plaintiffs argued the case was far from moot given that, in light of the commands in Trump’s executive order, the NEA would likely just re-adopt the same requirement as before.
They said such a requirement violated the free speech protections in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the agency’s governing statute, the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers said that by law, NEA had been barred from directing, supervising or controlling a funded organization’s policies or personnel in order to further its mission of fostering “the material conditions for releasing this creative talent.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Jack Queen in New York;Editing by Noeleen Walder, Nia Williams and Matthew Lewis)
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