NSF cancels $1.1B in grants, most tied to DEI programs
Out of the hundreds of grants the National Science Foundation (NSF) has canceled this year under the Trump administration, the vast majority of them have been related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
The grant cancellations total to around $1.1 billion and affect 4 percent of all active NSF projects, according to a study published by the Urban Institute.
Out of the hundreds of grants the National Science Foundation (NSF) has canceled this year under the Trump administration, the vast majority of them have been related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
The grant cancellations total to around $1.1 billion and affect 4 percent of all active NSF projects, according to a report published by the Urban Institute on July 9.
The institute found that the impact of grant cancellations is not evenly spread. Massachusetts’s Fifth District lost around $165 million, or 40 percent of NSF funding there. Colorado’s Second District and Arizona’s Fourth District, both of which contain large universities, also saw major cuts.
Text analysis shows that nearly 90 percent of the canceled grants included DEI-related words like “diverse,” “underrepresented,” or “equitable,” compared to about 50 percent of noncanceled grants.
Overall, 94 percent of canceled projects included at least one flagged keyword. Of the rest, most were tied to Harvard and focused on topics such as “misinformation.”
On its website, NSF explains that it is terminating awards to “ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent in the most efficient way possible consistent with each agency’s mission.”
NSF continues to state that awards that are “not aligned with program goals or agency priorities” are subject to termination, “including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), environmental justice, and misinformation/disinformation.”
President Trump has consistently taken measures against DEI, including by signing an executive order against “ Radical And Wasteful” programs shortly after resuming office.
Additionally, the Department of Education sent a notice in February warning schools that, if they do not remove DEI programs, they could lose their federal funding.
Despite that, Campus Reform reported in June that a federal judge ruled that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) illegally cut over $1 billion in DEI-related grants from universities.
The judge said the cuts discriminated against racial, gender, and LGBT minorities.
The Biden administration’s NIH had previously prioritized DEI grants, but the Trump administration reversed course, firing employees and eliminating such funding.
A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson defended the DEI cuts at the time, saying the department “stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people.”
In response to Campus Reform’s request, the National Science Foundation declined to comment.
Campus Reform has also reached out to the Urban Institute for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
