U.S. President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities is Dissolved

The Trump administration has disbanded the committee which formerly comprised Yo-Yo Ma, Jon Batiste, Lady Gaga, and Bruce Cohen

Founded in the U.S. by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) involved members appointed by the President, including artists, scholars, and philanthropists dedicated to the arts and humanities.

Among the previous members of the PCAH include Frank Sinatra, Yo-Yo Ma, Jon Batiste, Lady Gaga, Bruce Cohen, Shonda Rhimes, Jennifer Garner, George Clooney, and Kerry Washington.

Now, as part of executive orders aimed at reversing the previous administration’s policies on arts and culture, President Donald Trump’s administration has dissolved the PCAH, The New York Times reported.

Over the years, the PCAH has helped the restoration of funding for public arts education and expanded tax incentives for cultural philanthropy, as well as developed the Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts initiative for boosting arts education in the nation’s lowest-performing schools.

While the committee remained nonpartisan, the NYT explained that it unintentionally revealed a shared discord between President Trump and what he disparaged as “out-of-touch cultural elites” during his first term in office. 

The PCAH was previously dissolved in August 2017 when its committee members resigned in protest of Trump’s response to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

The White House later issued a statement saying that Mr. Trump was already planning to disband the committee on the grounds that it was “not a responsible way to spend American tax dollars.”

However, the PCAH was restored by President Joe Biden almost two years into his presidency; he believed it to be “the soul of America, reflecting our multicultural and democratic experience …  [that addresses] the greatest challenges of our time, such as the climate crisis and the scourge of hate-fueled violence.”

With an annual budget of around $335,000 for 2024, the PCAH met six times after its revival. Actions included reviewing a proposal for a campaign to combat the loneliness epidemic identified by Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general. Its final meeting was held on January 9, 2025. 

“Not only did he fire us all, but he disbanded the actual committee,” said the former Democratic U.S. representative from NY and former PCAH member, Steve Israel in the NYT. “It suggests that there’s a proactive hostility toward arts and humanities.”

The decision behind dissolving the PCAH is part of the Trump administration’s redirecting of resources to organizations other than cultural institutions.

So far, the National Endowment for the Art (NEA) and Humanities (NEH) remain in operation — euronews reported that Trump called for their defunding during his first presidency but has not mentioned it in his current term. 

The Art Newspaper added that he held similar sentiments with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Conversely, President Trump has expressed his support for a major outdoor sculpture park, which he plans to launch by 2026 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence. 

The park would include a range of cultural figures, including artists, musicians, and actors such as Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Emily Dickinson, Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Frost, Ansel Adams, and Lauren Bacall.

Despite the disbanding of the PCAH, the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts (PACA) — which Biden also revived during his term — still appears to exist, added The Art Newspaper. 

Formed under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958, PACA members serve as ambassadors and Kennedy Center representatives for the arts nationwide. According to its website, the new PACA members will be listed “upon their appointment by the President.”

Among the PACA members appointed by Biden in 2022 included a co-founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the first director of cultural affairs for the City of New York, and a trustee of Houston’s Menil Collection.