Underground Railroad museum sues Trump administration alleging it canceled grant on the basis of race
An Upstate New York Underground Railroad museum alleged in a lawsuit Friday that the Trump administration illegally terminated its federal grant on the basis of race, highlighting President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle diversity initiatives.
The Underground Railroad Education Center, located in Albany, New York, alleges in its lawsuit that the National Endowment for the Humanities the cancellation of a $250,000 grant amounted to viewpoint and racial discrimination, violating the First and Fifth Amendments, respectively.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks restoration of the funds.
The suit cited Trump’s January 2025 executive order that required federal agencies to eliminate all operations supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within 60 days. The 40-page document describes 1,400 grants that ended in early April 2025 “because of their conflict with President Trump’s EOs and new agency priorities adopted in their wake.”
Nina Loewenstein, an attorney for the museum, told NBC News that there was “simply no legitimate basis” for the grant to be canceled, adding that it “simply explicitly erased items associated with the black race.”
Loewenstein and the team of pro bono attorneys on the case through Lawyers for Good Government, an organization that provides free legal services for civil and human rights cases, argued that the Underground Railroad Education Center is just one of thousands of organizations that have been illegally targeted by the Trump administration.
“Many statements by current executive branch leaders reflect overt and coded racism supporting white supremacy and denigrating Black history in America,” the lawsuit states.
He added that the administration “systematically targeted grantees and programs that sought to increase public understanding of black history and cultures.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday evening.
The Trump administration has targeted museums and exhibits across the United States in an effort to enforce the president’s anti-DEI directives. A judge last month ordered the administration to restore an exhibit on slavery in Philadelphia after artwork and informational exhibits were removed from the President’s House site.
The administration also changed the days Americans can visit national parks for free this year in a November directive, removing Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth. In August, he called for a thorough review of the Smithsonian Museum’s exhibits, materials and operations to ensure they fit the president’s vision of history.
The Underground Railroad Education Center is based in the home of Stephen and Harriet Myers, abolitionists who helped thousands escape slavery in the decades before the Civil War, according to museum co-founders Paul and Mary Liz Stewart.
The Stewarts began working on Underground Railroad research in the late 1990s, after Mary Liz, a fifth-grade teacher at the time, heard her students say they had almost no awareness of the topic despite the deep ties it had to their neighborhood. Since 2004, the couple has worked to restore the house and make it a place at the center of the community, hosting tours and activities.
The Stewarts were working to finance a $12 million project to build an interpretive center next to the Myers’ residence because its current operations had outgrown the space. They say the loss of the $250,000 NEH grant caused a major setback to the project.
Mary Liz said the grant “validated who we are as an organization, what we were trying to do. And in turn, as we have told the rest of the world, this is an organization that needs to be paid attention to.”
