April 18, 2025

Week 13

Figuring out what to focus on now & next in science and higher ed

This newsletter is my part of an ongoing conversation among colleagues who’ve had a rough week. I share two or three pieces of the puzzle that feel are most important, hazard a guess about what to expect next, and offer at least one useful thing to do.

MEETING THE MOMENT: 2025-04-18

Hello friends,

We have been worried about academic freedom since January. And this week, after months of advocacy by community colleges, then Wesleyan, Georgetown, and Princeton, it feels like we may be at a tipping point. On Monday, Harvard rejected the administration’s list of demands, earning a surge in donations, as well as support from former President Obama, faculty at Yale, and the president and provost of Stanford. 

It’s making me think about a certain kind of movie scene that always gets me: at the last moment, when all hope seems lost, impossible odds are overcome after more heroes arrive to join the fight. Whether it’s T'Challa stepping out of that golden portal as the Avengers assemble or Gandalf arriving at first light on the fifth day, this trope is oh-so-familiar if still somehow exhilarating. But I have little time for superheroes or wizards right now. I am not willing to pin my hopes on the highest-powered attorneys of the wealthiest institutions in the world. 

Instead, I keep thinking about Casablanca. More than anything else, it’s the scene where the patrons in Rick’s Cafe sing La Marseillaise. I remember that Casablanca was filmed in the summer of 1942, a summer that is hard for me to imagine. The American government was launching the Manhattan Project. The German government was beginning to systematically gas Jewish people at Auschwitz. And on the Casablanca set, nearly all of the cast and extras were refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. In many ways, they were the lucky ones. “Lucky” to have survived imprisonment and concentration camps. Lucky their scramble for visas worked out.¹ Watch them as they sing - the actors, not their characters - many are crying. “Aux armes, citoyens, formez vos bataillons.” They don’t know what the outcome will be, only what the fight is for. 

This was week 13. Let’s face it together. 

What’s happening now

The government continues to be hollowed out and weaponized. Science and higher ed are most impacted by staffing cuts, funding cuts, and a wicked combination of censorship and disinformation. 

• Staffing: I regret to inform you that the FDA is planning to end its routine food safety inspections work and outsource that oversight to local authorities. It’s helpful, but horrible, to remind people that about a month ago, the administration also postponed a record-keeping requirement that would help food companies rapidly trace contamination through the supply chain and get it off grocery shelves. Gross. Anyway, while those plans are still in development, the agency has already suspended the quality control program for its food safety labs, due to “immediate and significant” impacts from the 20,000+ jobs cut from HHS so far.² Although food safety inspectors themselves were specifically protected from layoffs, the teams that managed their logistics, tested their samples, and relayed their findings and safety recalls are all gone. The FDA is now scrambling to hire contractors to pick up those responsibilities. And because everything is going so well with the reduction of federal staffing, this afternoon, the administration also announced its intention to reclassify³ something like fifty thousand federal employees, which will strip them of whistleblower protections and make them easier to legally fire. Finally, the NSF disbanded twelve different expert advisory committees, reducing the agency’s strategic guidance and responsiveness to the research community. 

• Funding: We’ve seen a number of key budget proposals this week. The one that has the most attention is the radical diminishment of the NIH. But the White House OMB has also directed USGS to cease all activities in its Ecosystems Mission Area, in keeping with a Project 2025 goal to end the entire biological research program at the agency. It is similarly attempting to end the entire scientific research division at NOAA.⁴ Remember, Congress has final authority over the budget, and some programs are legislatively mandated. Announcements are not the same as legal authority, but they do have impact. For example, internal NIH communications have directed grant managers to  stop grant and contract payments to Harvard, Brown, Northwestern, Cornell, and Weill-Cornell Medical School. It also forbids staff from communicating  to these institutions about whether the funds are frozen or why. And that brings us to NSF. As DOGE swept into the agency on Wednesday, bad news started rolling out. New awards have been frozen and approved proposals that were awaiting final sign-off have been sent back to program officers. And then terminations of active awards began this afternoon, with an announcement ending the broader impacts criterion as we’ve known it.⁵ The four hundred and counting research grants identified as “no longer effectuating program goals or agency priorities” are those focused on DEI and mis- and disinformation. Efforts are underway to collect a full record of the cancelled grants.  

• Disinformation: I find myself worrying about efforts that use powerful language about “promoting open and transparent scientific discourse” without committing to the powerful practices that actually entails. The administration claims that “maximum transparency” is the reason why the COVID.gov website you may remember is now unrecognizable. That URL (and covidtests.gov) now redirect to a White House address ending in /lab-leak-true-origins-of-covid-19. It features what organizations with libel insurance and factcheckers term “misleading and highly contested claims.“ Speaking of, at least three peer-reviewed journals received letters from a federal prosecutor this week, accusing them of partisan bias. How many more may be targeted in this round of action is an open question, but responses are demanded from those publications by May 2.

What’s next

The administration seems to be moving to strip some climate and environment nonprofits of their tax-exempt status next week. The rumors suggest the actions would be scheduled for Earth Day (Tuesday), and would also target specific funders. Expect immediate legal challenges if that happens. An even more frightening prospect for Tuesday has to do with the upcoming report weighing in on whether the President should invoke the Insurrection Act.⁶

I think the best way to cope with the uncertainty and anxiety of these unknowns is to do what you can. There are more protests and days of action happening across the country. If you feel drawn to in-person gatherings, start local. Your university AAUP, SURJ chapter, or Indivisible group is almost certainly looking for your support.⁷ And support is needed in so many ways - sometimes it’s showing up, sometimes it’s speaking up. Maybe you focus on explaining to the community what actions leadership is taking, or maybe you activate alumni networks, like MIT president Sally Kornbluth did this week.

What to do

Since I started writing this debrief a few hours ago, the administration has characterized the letter it sent to Harvard last week⁸ as an “unauthorized” mistake. Despite claiming that the letter should not have been sent, the administration has not withdrawn it. Rather, it has moved ahead on attempting to freeze $2.2 billion in grants and revoke the university’s tax-exempt status, while simultaneously describing the school's response as an “overblown… victimhood campaign.”

This particular form of rhetoric⁹ pushes me to my limit, so I’ll keep this short and say: we need to take care of ourselves and each other, while we figure out how to rebuke and rebuff the daily onslaught. Care can take all kinds of forms, but mental health is an urgent priority for many people in my circles. Whether you spend half an hour exploring the evidence-based approach to reducing stigma within academia offered by Dragonfly Mental Health, commit to an intensive Psychological First Aid module, or choose something entirely different, it’s clear that we must focus on the long haul.

To do that, I invite you to join me for one or both of our new regular events. These are every Monday at 7-8 pm ET / 4-5pm PT.

• Option 1: Weekly Meeting the Moment co-working. This is hosted by me, and designed to be a low-key way to gather, get help if you need it, and make progress on your own projects. Breakout rooms give us flexibility to work in social groups or in solo, silent sprints, whichever suits you best each week. You only need to register once to drop in whenever works, and you can do that here. 

• Option 2: Monthly Science in Solidarity action hour. This is movement-building time, hosted by Nic Bennett and Daniel Aguirre. Our next one is Monday May 12th and you can register for it here.

We can’t know what the outcome will be, only what the fight is for. So in the meantime, keep singing. 

Liz

As ever, thanks for reading & thinking with me. Please share it with your people. This newsletter will always be free, but if you want to subscribe ⤵️