After President Donald Trump took office this year, some of his administration’s earliest actions targeted the arts. In early February, Trump began remaking the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in his image . And the National Endowment for the Arts issued new rules for grant applicants that sought, among other things, to prohibit attempts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

But oddly, given Republicans’ history of hostility toward the NEA, the only real funding change there at the time was the cancellation of a small if established program to support arts groups in disadvantaged communities. Later, when the administration canceled grants from the less well-known National Endowment for the Humanities and the even more behind-the-scenes Institute for Museum and Library Services , observers were left wondering what was in store for the NEA, whose current budget is $207 million.

Last week, we began to find out. Friday evening — at 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m. — arts groups around the country began receiving anonymous emails from “[email protected]” informing them their grants would be terminated as of May 31.

“The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President,” read one version of the letter, which was supplied to WESA by a local recipient. “Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.”

Newly prioritized projects, the letter continued, would be those that “elevate the Nation’s HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.”

“Your project, as noted below, unfortunately does not align with these priorities,” it reads, followed by a line lifted from each group’s grant application.

“It’s kind of like ‘We’re firing you, you suck.’ That’s what it felt like when I read it,” said Staycee Pearl, co-artistic director of PearlArts Sound and Movement. Her dance troupe, which has toured nationally, was told its $20,000 grant was terminated.

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, which hosts nationally known authors at Carnegie Music Hall, saw a $15,000 grant terminated. “So bringing writers to Pittsburgh does not ‘reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity,’ according to the new policies of the NEA,” said PAL executive director Sony Ton-Aime.

Other Pittsburgh nonprofits whose NEA grants were terminated include Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Opera, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and City Theatre. Most of the grants were for between $15,000 and $40,000. Early this week, the New Hazlett Theater, City of Asylum and PAL emailed supporters about the terminated grants.

City Theatre managing director James McNeel is a former NEA employee. “It’s an extraordinary institution that supports so many worthy arts organizations, and to see both the grants pulled as they were, sort of in a Friday-night dump, without any thought or process” is “heartbreaking,” he said. (Also Friday, nine NEA directors, including one McNeel considers a mentor, announced their resignations.)

There are many confusing parts to this story, including the termination letter’s odd laundry list of new NEA “priorities,” some of which seem glancingly connected to the arts at best. (“Disaster recovery”?)

Moreover, the letters were sent just hours after Trump submitted to Congress a proposed budget that eliminates the NEA entirely. Why new priorities for an institution you aim to zero out? And why demand it be zeroed out a month after publishing a study about how great the arts-and-culture sector is for the economy, including the balance of trade ?

While we’re at it, how do Trump’s personal preferences even come into play here? While at least one other Republican president sought to kill the NEA , no previous president has claimed the right to dictate the artistic priorities of this self-described “independent federal agency.” When the NEA’s funding was slashed in the 1990s, amidst early “culture wars” skirmishes, it was Congress that did the cutting.

Here’s another: A lot of the money in those terminated grants had already been spent. As with many government grants, funds are not awarded up front, but rather paid out as reimbursements. And several Pittsburgh groups — including PearlArts, PAL and City Theatre — had already been fully reimbursed by the NEA for the grants it later told them they didn’t deserve. (Some groups had in fact spent the money in anticipation of possible grant terminations.) PAL’s grant helped fund the March 24 talk by novelist Percival Everett, who this week won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel “James.”

Other organizations were less fortunate. The Trust had been promised $35,000 in what the NEA called “tentative funding” for this year’s Three Rivers Arts Festival, but now will have to do without. The New Hazlett has not yet been reimbursed for $7,500 of the $30,000 grant that helped pay for its signature Community Support Art performance series. And the PSO has not been reimbursed for any spending related to a $40,000 NEA grant to expand its Paul J. Ross Fellowship, which helps prepare Black and brown musicians for careers as orchestra professionals.

The loss is “not insurmountable,” said PSO president and CEO Melia Tourangeau. “But it’s certainly symbolic in a lot of ways, and it’s still $40,000 we’re going to have to make up in the future.”

For groups with active grants that are not fully reimbursed, there is some hope. Recipients can file appeals. Also, the NEA is giving recipients till May 31 to submit “a final payment request.” The PSO and the New Hazlett, among others, hope to collect what they’ve already spent.

Legal action, of course, remains an option for groups who don’t get promised funds. But if the loss of dollars stings this year, the future is an even bigger question mark.

NEA grant applications are submitted up to two years in advance of the projects they’re meant to fund. Groups including the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh have filed applications they’ve yet to hear back about. New Hazlett executive director Rene Conrad said her group’s latest grant application “will undoubtedly also be rejected.” And Film Pittsburgh executive director Kathryn Spitz Cohan said she’s anticipating cancellation of a grant awarded to her group last year and set to go into effect July 1.

Arts & Lectures has an application in, too, but as Ton-Aime said, “After this email we know we are not going to get that grant.” He added that if the NEA is excluding groups that promote diversity and equity, PAL will not change its mission to comply.

Of course, the fate of all such grants might hinge on whether the NEA even exists next year.

Trump tried to eliminate the Endowment in his first term , too — but Congress voted to keep it, and even grew its budget a bit. That likely speaks at least in part to the NEA’s mission to fund art in every corner of the country (read “every Congressional district”).

But while the funding itself is important, especially for smaller arts groups and for particular arts projects, NEA spending has a wider significance, said the PSO’s Tourangeau.

The latest developments, she said, are “incredibly disappointing and sad, and I hope that we’re able to keep the NEA with us.”