Berkeley, California (AP) – President Donald Trump crackdown Diversity, equity, inclusion The federal government money-Receive program initiative has cast doubt on the future of research Kendra Dahmer has been doing with intestinal parasites in India and Benin.
Dahmer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, holds grants from the National Institutes of Health, the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.
The grant is supposed to cover her research until the summer of 2026, but now I wonder if that is possible. She is the first university graduate in the family and receives diversity-based funding as a woman in science, and is more widely known, how Trump’s anti-DEI executive order will affect her support in her field of research. is.
“There are also aspects of this research that fund specific research in a particular population that is currently considered a DEI,” Dahmer said. “Therefore, like African HIV studies, it could be considered Dei. This could be considered malaria studies that occur in low- and middle-income countries as well, and these are hundreds of thousands of times each year. It’s a truly important disease that kills people and people.”
Two days after Trump signed DEI’s Presidential Order Researchers were even more worried when the White House called for a funding freeze to implement an ideological review of all federal grants and loans on January 21. After days of confusion and legal conflict, two judges stepped in and the administration revoked the freeze. This week, the National Science Foundation of Health, which funds numerous research in the country, began announcing the grant.
But it doesn’t alleviate the fears of scientists and researchers whose jobs are funded by federal grants. The NSF said it is still conducting a review of projects, programs and activities to comply with existing executive orders. It is not yet clear what will happen with new and existing NIH grants.
The university, which received nearly $60 billion for its 2023 research, is mostly quiet and is trying to explain it to staff and students in a statement to clarify the impact of the executive order on research funding. Meanwhile, they are Navigate the impact of orders On their own institutional policies supporting underrepresented students.
University of California “We will assess the recent executive order issued by President Trump and subsequent agency guidance to understand the potential impact on the community.”
Some projects are not yet clear in new policies, but already held amid uncertainty about the future of touching on issues related to diversity, according to Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors. It’s been done.
The already suspended research includes research on artificial intelligence and how racism is coded in the system, he said. Other projects Wolfson has heard about the suspension include research on health equity and research on urban literacy rates.
“I think those making these decisions want to create a society based on a deep set of inequality that’s hard burnt and burnt, he said.
The education department did not respond to email messages seeking comment.
The threat to funding research related to DEIs could eliminate historically black colleges and university lifelines. Significantly underfunded Compared with primarily white institutions.
North Carolina Agriculture and Technology State University, the nation’s largest HBCU, is a long-standing mission to become one of the first to reach R1 status. This is a distinction between the university and the Carnegie Foundation, which demonstrates its high research efforts, but Joseph Graves, a professor of biology, said that the president’s intervention in federal funds could slow it down. He said. As it stands, biology students must study hats and gloves during the winter due to lack of heat in the old buildings, he said.
A new scrutiny of federal research grants could hurt HBCU students who have federally funded fellowships for their research, Graves said. These potentially at-risk scholarships allow minority students to pursue opportunities they may not have afforded.
The Trump administration’s perception of diversity, equity and inclusion could target HBCUs due to the high population of minority students, Graves said.
“They’ll see our excellence in doing work that is changing the demographics of science and attack it as a DEI,” Graves said. “Whatever we do, we’re doing Dei whether they like it or not.”
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Rodriguez reported from San Francisco to Seminella from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press author Cheyanne Mumphrey of Phoenix and Adithi Ramakrishnan of New York contributed.
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