On Tuesday, the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia filed a complaint against the Trump Administration over the termination of a $750,000 grant, following the administration’s dismantlement of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
In 2024, the National Park Services in partnership with the IMLS awarded the Woodmere a Save America’s Treasures (SAT) grant for the conservation of their collection deemed ‘nationally significant’. In March 2025, the White House issued the executive order ‘Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy’ which called for the IMLS, among other federal agencies, to be ‘eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law’. Several days later, the entire staff of the IMLS was placed on administrative leave, preventing the agency from processing grants and distributing funding.
As grant reimbursements are distributed quarterly, the Woodmere only received about $195,000 of the $750,000 grant before the IMLS’s activities were halted. In the complaint, the museum states that, ‘in significant reliance upon its grant, Woodmere embarked on an ambitious conservation project that would enable it to showcase its impressive collection reflecting America’s extraordinary heritage in time for the America 250 celebration beginning in 2026.’ The complaint requests a restriction of the implementation of the March executive order as it applies to Woodmere’s grant.
