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My NSF Grants Were Cancelled Today. They were on Ted Cruz's "lists". [1]
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Date: 2025-05-02
I work at a large public university. For those who “know” higher education in the US it’s a top R1 Public and often classified as one of of the “Public Ivies”.
My office worked exclusively on projects to support the success of students with disabilities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics fields. We’ve been around, doing this work for about 30 years, and most of our funding came from the National Science Foundation. This year, to the tune of about $3 million over multiple grants.
We watched, over the last few weeks, while colleagues across the country lost their “DEI” grants; last week, a few grants with a nexus of either women and disability or race and disability were cancelled. Four of them on our campus, worth several million dollars. But until today, no grants specifically around disability without another nexus, had been cut.
We knew that “first they came” for DEI, “then they came” for DEI and a nexus of “other”; we knew that eventually they would come for us — for the A — access; disability.
And so they finally have. An independent database, NSF Grant Terminations 2025 is tracking the trump/Musk attack on education and science.
I haven’t lost my job yet, but rich as my institution is, it’s not Harvard, and the campus cannot backfill several million dollars in lost NSF grants focused on DEIA. Not to mention NSF grants funding science research on topics this maladministration disapproves of, and of course, Dept. of Ed. grants funding huge DEIA initiatives.
My campus is looking at ways to keep us employed at least 50%, to guarantee benefits, but if I fully lose my job, I’ll be better off than my colleagues; my spouse is well-employed, making a lot more than me, and we use his health insurance, although Aetna is becoming more and more problematic. Just today we received notification from our health care network that Aetna has been problematic in renewing contracts with many local and regional health care systems, including ours, which is associated with my institution. And so starting June 1, our providers will no longer be in Aetna’s network. The greedy fuckers. We’ll have to fine new providers, in one of the big, national conglomerates or pay more out of pocket. The greedy corporate fucks.
If I do lose my job, I can probably make decent money doing consulting work. Just today I signed up with a consulting company that had been trying to recruit me for awhile.
But most of my colleagues are the main breadwinners for their families, and some of them have a much higher need for health care than I do. If worse comes to worst, they won’t be as secure as I am.
Not to mention, of course, the several hundred students with disabilities, in undergraduate and graduate STEM programs on campuses all across the country, that we work with, support, advise, fund to participate in research experiences, and fund to attend conferences where they can present their research.
Resist!
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/2/2320184/-My-NSF-Grants-Were-Cancelled-Today-They-were-on-Ted-Cruz-s-lists?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
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