When NC Central University English professor Rachelle Gold found out her grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities had been cancelled in April 2025, she was shocked.
She knew the Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE, was cancelling grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion. But her project — aside from taking place at a historically Black university, she said — had little to do with questions of diversity.
She was using the money to lead summer institutes during which faculty learn how to use and teach from digitized archives of NC Central’s campus yearbooks and newspapers. Then, faculty could create and improve coursework relating to institutional history…