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NEH Gives $1,000 Award to Pro-Margaret Sanger Paper

Rachel Carson documentary also recognized in NEH contest

Margaret Sanger (1883 - 1966) / Getty Images
June 21, 2017

The National Endowment for the Humanities honored a high school student for writing a paper celebrating Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger with a $1,000 award.

In one of its first acts under the Trump administration, the agency released its list of middle and high school students who received prizes for its National History Day competition. Acting Chair Margaret Plympton, who joined the NEH under the Obama administration, gave out the awards during a ceremony last week.

The agency sponsored 18 first-place prizes, including the junior paper category to a student from Saint Paul, Minn., who received an award for a paper entitled, "Margaret Sanger, Taking a Stand for Birth Control."

A paper on environmentalist Rachel Carson, entitled, "Standing Up for Women, Science, and the Environment," was chosen for second place in the same category.

The agency also awarded a $1,000 first-place prize to a documentary on Carson. A student in New Jersey took the prize for the project "Taking the Road Less Travelled: Rachel Carson's Stand Against DDT Sparks an Era of Environmental Consciousness."

The National History Day competition has received nearly $2 million from the NEH since 1979. The NEH gives $1,000 for first place in each category; $500 for second place; and $250 for third place.

Other recipients for this year's awards included second place for a senior paper on gay rights activist Frank Kameny and a special prize for a group exhibit entitled, "Harvey Milk: You've Got to Have Hope."

"The annual awards ceremony is the culmination of a yearlong academic program in which students in grades 6 to 12 conduct original historical research for papers, exhibits, websites, documentaries, and public performances," the NEH said in a press release. "This year more than a half million students submitted National History Day entries on the theme of 'Taking a Stand in History' at local, regional, and state competitions for a chance to win a spot at the national finals."

The NEH will release its first round of grants next month. President Trump's budget proposed the elimination of the NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts. Both agencies, however, received a $2 million increase in the congressional budget agreement passed earlier this year. Both budgets currently stand at $150 million.

Plympton joined the NEH in January 2015, after decades of experience as a vice president and finance administrator at several universities, including Bucknell, Yale, Wellesley College, and Harvard. She was elevated from deputy chairman to acting chairman after William "Bro" Adams resigned from the agency before the Trump budget was released.

Jon Peede is the Trump administration's liaison to the NEH, who previously worked at the National Endowment for the Arts.

Update 11:48 a.m.: After this article was published, an NEH spokesperson said the NEH does not review or select the winners directly, but fund the awards and sponsor the prizes.