A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration rule that the National Endowment for the Arts should withhold grants from applicants deemed to promote “gender ideology” violated the First Amendment. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Rhode Island Latino Arts, National Queer Theater, The Theater Offensive, and Theatre Communications Group. The theatre companies and artist groups filed the suit to challenge the NEA policy, which was launched following an executive order from Trump. U.S. District Senior Judge William Smith has decided that the NEA policy discriminated against artists’ free speech rights. “The NEA was designed not as an instrument of political communication but as a vehicle for private expression,” Smith writes in the decision.