Jan 27, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

The National Endowment for the Humanities has systematically rejected grants for gay-related research projects even when such projects are given top ratings by independent academic review panels, according to an organization of gay historians.

Officials with the American Historical Association’s Committee on Lesbian & Gay History accuse the NEH of allowing Bush administration political appointees to reject funding for gay-related research in the social sciences based on politics rather than accepted academic standards.

"There has been a clear trend at NEH to give greater scrutiny and opposition to gay and lesbian related proposals," said Leisa D. Meyer, immediate past chair of the Lesbian & Gay History Committee and associate professor of history and women’s studies at Virginia’s College of William & Mary.

The NEH is an independent agency of the government created in 1965 to promote excellence in the humanities. The agency’s website describes itself as the nation’s largest funding source for U.S. humanities programs and projects, which are carried out by individual scholars or cultural institutions such as museums, libraries, universities, and public television and radio stations.

News of the NEH’s reported bias against gay-related research first surfaced in a presentation by gay historian Marc Stein at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association earlier this month in Philadelphia. The academic journal Inside Higher Education published an article on Stein’s presentation, drawing responses from as many as a dozen other gay scholars who reported being denied grants from the NEH because of alleged anti-gay bias, Stein told the Blade.

Erik Lokkesmoe, NEH director of communications, did not return telephone calls seeing comment.

In an interview with Inside Higher Education, Lokkesmoe denied his agency has a bias against gay research projects.

"The only litmus test we have is excellence," he told the education publication.

He added the NEH welcomes gay studies scholars to apply for grants from the agency, saying they would receive "full consideration."

Stein said his own experience and reports by other gay academics who have applied for NEH grants raise strong doubts about Lokkesome’s claims of non-bias. Stein is an American citizen who teaches history at York University in Toronto.

In his presentation before the AHA meeting, he described how he applied in 2003 for an NEH grant to study the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings on sexual freedom issues, such as birth control, interracial marriage, obscenity, abortion, and gay rights issues, between 1965 and 1973.

Knowing that most of the thousands of grant applications received by the NEH are turned down, Stein said he did not think it unusual when NEH informed him it had rejected his proposal. He said he was surprised when he discovered an academic review panel gave his proposal its highest rating and recommended it.

Politics trumps academics?
Stein was even more surprised, he said, when he learned that an NEH council appointed by President Bush overturned the recommendation of the academic panel. The council and NEH chair Bruce Cole, a Bush appointee, then turned down his grant proposal, Stein said.

He said the other gay researchers turned down for grants reported similar situations where Cole denied their applications after peer review panels gave them positive recommendations.

In his interview with Inside Higher Education, NEH spokesperson Lokkesmoe acknowledged that the NEH, under the Bush administration, resumed using a process known as "flagging" grant applications on certain subjects.

The "flagging" process began under the tenure of Lynn Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed the NEH during the first President Bush administration. The practice was stopped during the Clinton administration, according to Stein.

Lokkesmoe insisted, however, that the flagging process is used sparingly and that NEH’s Cole "is not trying to fight the culture wars," Inside Higher Education quoted him as saying.

He declined to disclose the specific reasons why Cole and the NEH council rejected Stein’s grant application, saying confidentiality rules prevent him from make such disclosures, Inside Higher Education reported.