The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman and Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) published a list of over $2.05 billion in National Science Foundation (NSF) grants that he claimed “promoted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda,” on Feb. 11.
Cruz claimed that the “Biden administration weaponized federal agencies to push a far-left ideology” by awarding grants to these researchers, and that Congress had to “restore integrity to scientific research.” The various grants were labeled as falling into four categories: “Social Justice,” “Race,” “Gender” and “Environmental Justice.”
17 of the grants listed — totaling nearly $12 million — were for work carried out by Hopkins researchers.
The largest award at Hopkins listed was for the Research and Mentoring for Postbaccuelratues in Biological Sciences program (RaMP), an NSF-funded program that aims to facilitate mentorship and training programs for students who lacked biological research opportunities in college. Hopkins received nearly $3 million for this program — which provides individuals from groups underrepresented in STEM, first generation college students and individuals from under-resourced institutions the opportunity to train in biological sciences and is described as aligning with the NSF’s focus on “foster[ing] the growth of a globally-competitive and diverse research workforce.”
Following President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on Jan. 20, calling for the end to “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing,” the NSF announced that it was canceling all of its grant review panels, leading to a complete freeze in new NSF funding. Although it is unclear which of Trump’s executive orders led to this pause, researchers have suspected it is due to the DEI orders. As of nearly two months later, this pause has not been removed.
Just last week, staff at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were instructed to identify and cancel grants studying gender identity, DEI, environmental justice and transgender populations, according to reporting by Nature.
In an interview with The News-Letter, Executive Vice Dean of the School of Engineering Andrew S. Douglas, shared his perspective on how the actions of the Trump administration have led to science and research becoming politicized.
“Our principal investigators, who are submitting research grants to the federal government now have a list of words that they have to remove from their grants,” he stated. “So there's a scrubbing going on, which is very unusual in an academic environment because we tend to focus on the truth and try to get politics out of science, but politics has been injected into science.”
In response to the broad reduction in federal funding for science and technology in various divisions, including the NIH, Douglas stressed that the diverting of funding from these pursuits will hinder the U.S.’s advantage in global innovation and security.
“If you look at what has been so good about the United States, it’s the ability to lead technologically, and that’s led to well-being in this country. It's led to economic growth and national security,” he stated. “[...] I think that the reduction in funding, which started at the NIH — [and] Secretary Hegseth has mentioned a reduction in funding at the Department of Defense as well — undermine the ability of the United States to be at the leading edge of technology, which keeps us ahead of our competitors in economic terms and in well-being terms and in national security terms.”
Other grants at the University noted by Cruz include a $600k award to the Chemistry Department for a project led by Professor Art Bragg and Professor J.D. Tovar that examines how chemical changes in pi-conjugated building block molecules will affect the properties of organic molecules. The NSF noted that this research and its findings could lead to advances in high-speed transistors, which are critical for computing and data and signal processing. The grant also involves outreach to high schools in Baltimore to promote participation of women and under-represented minorities in higher education programs and research. Cruz labeled the grant in the “Gender” category.
Douglas also emphasized the importance of communication with impacted individuals on the University-level.
“I think that communication with individuals is extremely important. One is that we really are worried about our people, and that means the students, the staff, the faculty and we will try to do what we can to protect them,” he stated.
The cuts in federal funding also have the potential to impact graduate admissions and the ability of faculty to support graduates, leading to some programs at Hopkins reporting smaller incoming classes than prior years. Douglas stated that 70% of support for the School of Engineering’s doctoral students comes from external contracts and grants with federal agencies.
Douglas emphasized that Hopkins researchers, many of whom have been impacted by the federal policy changes, receive funding based on the merit of their projects and their excellence and not just because they are at Hopkins.
“Our funding is merit-based. It's not block-granted,” he said. “We don't just get it because we’re here. We get it because we have the best researchers in the country.”
