After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a Santa Fe park welcomed an art installation with pillars of woven wood encircling an altar. It was meant to be a place for New Mexicans to reflect on civil rights and race relations.

Five years later, the installation, “O’Gah Po’Geh Altar Project,” reflects tensions around public funding for the arts, after executive orders by President Trump restricted the use of federal grant money for projects that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

Izzy Barr, the executive director of the Railyard Park Conservancy, where “O’Gah Po’Geh” was displayed for six months, said it was unclear whether showing the same artwork today would violate the current terms and conditions for public arts funding.

And she does not want to risk finding out.

The Railyard Park Conservancy is one of several arts organizations across New Mexico to publicly decline grants from the state’s arts council, which disburses federal funds supplied by the National Endowment of the Arts. It is a decision that they say prioritizes free speech and creative expression without fear of restrictions or retribution.

“We declined the grant rather than submerge our core values in those muddy waters,” Barr wrote in a newsletter announcing the decision to reject a $4,866 grant.

Amid concerns over funding after the National Endowment of the Arts canceled a large percentage of its awards in May, organizations across the country have decided they would rather find money elsewhere than be subject to federal restrictions.

The Denver Philharmonic Orchestra declined an $8,000 grant, citing concerns about diluting its D.E.I. work. The Portland Opera in Oregon said it would not apply for future federal grants if current restrictions remain in place. And in Troy, N.Y., the Arts Center of the Capital Region rejected a $50,000 grant because of what it called fears of censorship.

Since August, more than 875 people and 270 organizations have signed a statement released by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics that emphasized a need for art independence.

“Exercising programmatic autonomy is essential to preserving institutional purpose and resilience in the face of ideological pressure,” the statement read. “If institutions don’t live up to this mandate, they risk becoming instruments of propaganda and subject to the whims of those temporarily in power.”

Michelle LaFlamme-Childs, the executive director of the state’s arts council, said eight of about 220 applicants had declined funding this year, the first time she had seen groups do so.

“We totally understand that every organization has to make the determination for themselves where they feel comfortable, what risk they’re willing to take or not,” she said.

The arts council in Las Vegas, N.M., released a statement that its board had unanimously voted to decline a $4,701 grant, fearing that events like an annual pride month exhibit would violate the executive orders and jeopardize its federal nonprofit status.

GallupARTS, a nonprofit arts council in Gallup, declined a $4,977 grant so it could continue a “Social Justice Guest Curator” program that invited people to showcase exhibits on themes like housing, climate change and intergenerational trauma.

“At the end of the day it felt like the only ethical choice for our organization to make,” said Rose Eason, the group’s executive director.

When New Mexico’s arts council published guidelines for grant funding applications in September 2024, the blue-and-orange brochure featured a page dedicated to “Diversity and Inclusion.” Through a slew of bullet points, it affirmed that New Mexico “is made up of many diverse cultures” and that the state valued the ethnic and racial makeup of organizations, which has led to increased audience diversity.

By the time state grants were awarded in June, though, the funding came with a caveat.

Any organizations receiving funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the agency says, have to certify that they do not “operate any programs promoting D.E.I. that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.”

That is a considerable obstacle for gallupARTS, whose largest undertakings have leaned into ideas of “D.E.I. principles and practice and frameworks,” Eason said.

The nonprofit organization supports the LOOM Indigenous Art Gallery and this year helped open the Gallup New Deal Art Virtual Museum, which examines tensions between Indigenous artists and the exploration of American settlers venturing West.

The grant it declined was a sliver of its $100,000 annual budget, and other funding sources have trickled in. But Eason has grown more concerned about censorship since the police removed four Sally Mann photographs from a museum in Fort Worth, Texas, because they showed her nude children.

She is not alone. In monthly calls with larger arts organizations across the state and country, Eason has been having conversations about censorship, funding and federal regulations.

“I wish the circumstances were different,” she said. “But I’m glad that it’s bringing us together in these ways and I think it will serve us really well through the next three years and beyond that.”