--- title: DOGE Bro’s Grant Review Process Was Literally Just... description: Court documents from an Authors Guild lawsuit reveal that DOGE operatives Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox terminated over 1,400 National Endowment for the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/doge-bro-s-grant-review-process-was-literally-just-asking-chatgpt-is-this-dei--q77gui48w twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: DOGE Bro’s Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT ‘Is This DEI?’ | daily.dev og:description: Court documents from an Authors Guild lawsuit reveal that DOGE operatives Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox terminated over 1,400 National Endowment for the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/doge-bro-s-grant-review-process-was-literally-just-asking-chatgpt-is-this-dei--q77gui48w og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/q77gUi48w.png og:image:alt: DOGE Bro’s Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT ‘Is This DEI?’ og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # DOGE Bro’s Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT ‘Is This DEI?’ **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 9 min read · 1 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Court documents from an Authors Guild lawsuit reveal that DOGE operatives Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox terminated over 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities grants using a crude ChatGPT prompt asking whether each grant 'relates at all to DEI' in under 120 characters. Fox also built a keyword 'Detection List' including terms like 'LGBTQ,' 'tribal,' and 'BIPOC' while excluding 'white' or 'heterosexual.' Grants flagged by this method were placed on a 'to cancel' list with no input from NEH subject-matter experts, who were blocked from challenging terminations. Termination letters were sent from a private email server and falsely attributed to acting NEH director Michael McDonald, who admitted he had no role in selecting which grants to cut. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@fabianletsch** · 0 upvotes > Just... No words 😐 ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [A “QuitGPT” campaign is urging people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions](https://daily.dev/posts/a-quitgpt-campaign-is-urging-people-to-cancel-their-chatgpt-subscriptions-sozpeqjmu) · MIT Technology Review · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [New York Times says OpenAI hid evidence in ChatGPT copyright trial](https://daily.dev/posts/new-york-times-says-openai-hid-evidence-in-chatgpt-copyright-trial-fgbf1wmuq) · TechCrunch · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author’s style](https://daily.dev/posts/chatgpt-starts-blocking-direct-requests-to-copy-an-author-s-style-bs94hrqbn) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#chatgpt](https://daily.dev/tags/chatgpt) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/doge-bro-s-grant-review-process-was-literally-just-asking-chatgpt-is-this-dei--q77gui48w) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"DOGE Bro’s Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT ‘Is This DEI?’","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/doge-bro-s-grant-review-process-was-literally-just-asking-chatgpt-is-this-dei--q77gui48w","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/doge-bro-s-grant-review-process-was-literally-just-asking-chatgpt-is-this-dei--q77gui48w"},"datePublished":"2026-02-19T20:21:01.184Z","dateModified":"2026-02-19T20:21:25.709Z","description":"Court documents from an Authors Guild lawsuit reveal that DOGE operatives Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox terminated over 1,400 National Endowment for the...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e4571edcdc677382a5e7b716bcad840a?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e4571edcdc677382a5e7b716bcad840a?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":1,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/doge-bro-s-grant-review-process-was-literally-just-asking-chatgpt-is-this-dei--q77gui48w","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}],"keywords":"llm,chatgpt","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"DOGE Bro’s Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT ‘Is This DEI?’"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/doge-bro-s-grant-review-process-was-literally-just-asking-chatgpt-is-this-dei--q77gui48w","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Just… No words 😐","datePublished":"2026-02-23T23:52:55.849Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/q77gUi48w#c-AEXBqKl8i","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Fabian Letsch","url":"https://daily.dev/fabianletsch","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocKR6BVy_wn23EoOKq7-BlszlcXcLmASlnb7l-GtS-q1bePnkaJf=s96-c"}}]} ```