Ideological Constraint on Research and Teaching Takes Off

Politicians of both major parties are looking to limit what can be researched and taught.

Nature reported Thursday that, “In an unprecedented move, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun mass terminations of research grants that fund active scientific projects because they no longer meet ‘agency priorities’.”

According to the reporting, “NIH staff members have been instructed to identify and potentially cancel grants for projects studying transgender populations, gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the scientific workforce, environmental justice and any other research that might be perceived to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity, according to documents and an audio recording that Nature has obtained. Grants that allot funding to universities in China and those related to climate change are also under scrutiny.”

This appears to be in keeping with the Executive Order issued on Feb. 26 by President Trump. That EO called for review and possible termination of grants that fail to “advance the policies of my Administration.” Insider Higher Ed previously reported NSF grant reviewers hunting for “flagged words,” including “female,” “historically,” and “male-dominated.”

The Transmitter reported Trump’s politics on sex and gender appear to have pushed the NIH to change its long-standing policy “on research into sex differences. The move could signal a shift away from research that considers the roles of sex and gender in biology and health, several neuroscientists told The Transmitter.” In other words, ironically, the ideological sledgehammer approach appears to be decreasing the likelihood that we’ll see sex-difference research funded. This is the kind of research that not only examines how drugs may work differently in males and females but how male biology differs from female.

The Transmitter also broke the news that, in the area of federally-funded scientific research, the Trump administration was doing an “end-run” around checks on executive power. (The story was later picked up nationally.) The trick has been to halt the meetings that lead to funding. The journal Science reported Monday the NIH is poised to restart some of those meetings later this month.

Still, billions in science funding to institutes of higher education appear to remain on the chopping block, impacting thousands of projects that President Trump might not find at all misaligned with his views if he looked.

This week, writing in Quilette, Yale University’s and HxA member Evan Morris (Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering) accused Trump and Elon Musk of “antiscientific vandalism” for “aim[ing] their bazookas at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “‘Senseless’ may be one word that springs to mind,” Morris writes. “‘Permanent’ might be another.”

HxA President John Tomasi sat down with Retraction Watch’s Ivan Oransky to talk about these cuts in our latest edition of the HxA pod Heterodox Out Loud. “Even if it were all rolled back,” Oranski said, “it’s causing such consternation, and such – honestly – existential dread, among scientists that they are leaving the field.”

In the Boston Globe, Harvard’s Jeffrey S. Flier (former med school dean and current HxA Board member) and MIT economist Pierre Azoulay took a similar view: “Given these remarkable accomplishments [by American science in terms of medical breakthroughs and economic development], the the seemingly random attacks by the Trump administration on the core external funding mechanism employed by NIH threatens to do great harm to the biomedical research ecosystem.”

Flier and Azoulay, as others, argue it is reasonable to examine weaknesses and inefficiencies in the system, but many are decrying what Flier and Azoulay deem “misinformed debates on indirect costs.”

At the Good Science Project, Stuart Buck – a longtime critic of federal funding systems for academic science – asks, “When is DOGE going to focus on reducing bureaucracy rather than increasing it?” Buck explains how current actions appear to be “increasing bureaucracy, reducing efficiency, and putting more roadblocks in the way of good government and innovation.”

Taking a different approach, Wall Street Journal “Upward Mobility” columnist Jason Riley supports dramatic cuts to indirect costs. Riley sees “universities [as] essentially wards of the state.” Riley bases his argument on a new book by labor economist Richard Vedder, Let Colleges Fail: The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education. “Mr. Vedder argues that one of the biggest problems with higher ed today is that colleges aren’t sufficiently disciplined by market forces,” Riley writes. “The result is too much administrative bloat subsidized by the government.”

Surveying the scene, plenty of insiders commenting on the situation have said that they (like HxA) find the end of DEI political litmus tests a welcome move. (Whether it really happens remains to be seen. At HxA, we’ll be watching.) But the actions being taken are raising serious concerns about academic freedom, as HxA’s Director of Communications Nicole Barbaro Simovski has noted.

At the same time, restrictions are occurring on what scientific collaborations may occur, making it harder for university-based scientists to do their work, and cuts to programs like USAID – which many people don’t think of as potentially impacting science funding – are hitting U.S. farm research.

Viewpoint constriction by politicians is not limited to the federal level or to Republican administrations.

The Associated Press reports New York State, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) “ordered a state school to remove a job posting for a Palestinian studies teaching position [three weeks ago], saying she wanted to ensure ‘antisemitic theories’ would not be taught.” She also ordered “a thorough review of the position to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom.”

And, in Indiana, a new law aimed at increasing viewpoint diversity on campuses has led to professors self-censoring and in some cases narrowing their teaching according to new reporting from the Chronicle of Higher Education. A leading Hoosier lawmaker told the Chronicle that if the law doesn’t do the trick, he’ll be looking at stricter laws like those found in Florida and Texas. (For HxA Director of Policy Joe Cohn’s analysis of the Indiana law, see here.)

If you’re concerned about preserving and promoting viewpoint diversity in higher ed, as we are at HxA, here are a few other items you may want to check out:

In a new data analysis, Eastern Illinois University political scientist Ryan Burge takes a look at the make-up of students by religious orientation along various axes, including comparing elite to non-elite universities, finding notable differences.

Writing for HxA’s periodical inquisitive, University of Chicago law professor Tom Ginsburg criticizes “undisciplined disciplines,” arguing they are conflating activism with real scholarship. “As we stand at a moment of deep alienation,” Ginsburg concludes, “stepping back from the further politicization of scholarship is an existential step.” (The piece, commissioned by HxA, was reprinted with permission under a different title by the Chronicle this week.)

Finally, on his new podcast, California Governor Gavin Newsom sat down with Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, and Kirk suggested that part of the Democratic party’s problems can be traced to constraint of viewpoint on college campuses.

“Your upbringing in college campuses does not foster debate like it used to,” Kirk said. “It’s about silencing the critic and the elevation of the victim…It’s very monolithic, it’s very centralized, it’s very top-down, it’s quasi-authoritarian.” Find the very heterodox conversation here.