PHILADELPHIA—A leader in the movement against Trump’s cuts to science and research here notes that slashing funds for the Centers for Disease Control and the National Weather Service are endangering the public because of “unreliable” reports now coming out of those institutions.
Against that backdrop, a coalition of protestors rallied at City Hall on March 7, less than two months into the second Trump administration, to also protest cuts cuts to National Institute of Health’s research funding. The event was part of a national day of action, including simultaneous rallies in San Francisco, Denver, and dozens of other cities across the country.
According to the NIH’s recent policy change notice, $35 billion was spent on research grants during the 2023 fiscal year. Some $9 billion of this, or about 25%, was allegedly spent on indirect costs, “defined as ‘facilities’ and ‘administration.’”
The new policy would place a cap on funding for what are claimed to be indirect costs at 15%, compared to a previous practice of individually negotiated funding rates. For researchers, this blanket cap constitutes a massive threat to many current and future projects, as some projects, due to their nature, could have “indirect, but actually vey necessary costs as high as 60% of a total grant amount.
At the rally, protesters stressed the importance of public resistance to the new Trump policy.
“There’s a huge economic reason to stand up for science because we know that there’s a huge return on investment when our government invests in science,” Amanda Rabinowitz, associate director of Jefferson Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, told People’s World.
“Every dollar from the NIH comes back more than two times in economic activity. In Pennsylvania alone, over 20,000 jobs are supported by these government grants. And that’s not only academics and researchers and faculty members at prestigious universities, it’s also the people who work in those buildings to maintain the facilities. It’s also the local economies around the universities that benefit from all of the people who work and live nearby,” she said.
Rabinowitz also described the other fronts of anti-science attacks from the Trump administration.
“There’s information […] that’s no longer trustworthy information on important websites like the CDC website, that affect climate updates like weather reporting. I mean, things that we just as a society count on every day,” she says, continuing, “the other reason that it’s important to stand up for science is because these specific attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility are trying to erase the existence of segments of our society.”
A biomedical scientist in attendance at the event, who spoke with People’s World on the condition of anonymity, referenced the personal relationships that people have with medicine as another reason to stand up for science.
“Everyone has had either someone they know that’s had a medical scare or something themselves. That is how we keep saving people’s lives. It is through scientific research and healthcare progression. That’s why it’s important – it’s crucial to everyone’s lives,” they told People’s World.
Estimates on event attendance varied between 1,000 and over 2,000 attendees, many of whom were researchers, scientists, doctors and students at local institutions like the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. When one speaker asked the crowd “who here has an analysis they should be running right now?” dozens in the crowd raised their hands and cheered.
The motives behind the cuts
When asked about the motives of the administration in making these cuts, attendees and organizers of the event alike cited a broader attack on knowledge.
“This is being done under the guise of efficiency and smart budget management and I just need to dispense with any pretense that that’s true on any level,” said Rabinowitz.
“You can hear in the way that Musk and Trump and their supporters speak, there’s this idea that there are these bastions of wokeness, of independent thought” she continued.
“I don’t think they want people to be educated,” an attendee told People’s World.
People’s World also spoke with Seth Anderson-Oberman, executive director of Reclaim and another organizer of the rally, who referenced broader economic motivations behind the NIH cuts.
“It’s motivated by the politics of billionaires who want to rewrite history, want to rewrite laws in favor of their own bottom line that maximize profits,” he said, continuing, “the attack on science is an attack on an educated populace, and the results of science that benefit not just an educated populace, but all of us. So, the attack on science is the agenda of fascism.”
The policy was set to take effect on Feb. 10, but was blocked by multiple lawsuits, including from 22 state attorneys general, the Association of American Universities and the Association of American Medical Colleges. Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts blocked the NIH funding cuts through temporary restraining orders (TROs) granted in the first and second lawsuits on February 10th, and later extended those TROs on February 21st. They are now set to remain in effect until Kelley makes a permanent decision on the proposed change.
The strategy moving forward
Regardless of the status of the temporary stalling of the policy change, organizers of the event are planning to continue the fight back.
“I think we’re facing an existential threat. Capitulating to these unjust executive orders is not going to win our favor, it’s not going to help us survive, it’s a short-sighted strategy. So, I think that […] continuing to build this momentum, to put pressure on our legislature at the state and federal level, to use our bargaining power, to encourage our universities to band together and do the right thing, fight these unjust actions in court… I think that we have to use this momentum to do all of these, to push forward on all of these fronts,” Rabinowitz said.
“I think we have to beat back universities like Penn. Penn has shown cowardice in preemptively caving to the [Trump] administration on DEI. I think a lot of the folks here are standing up for DEI and are shouting out against that move from Penn, so I think we have to make an example of Penn so that the rest of the research institutions in Philadelphia don’t follow suit,” said Anderson-Oberman.
He also encouraged a local organizing focus.
“Talk to your neighbors, organize where you are, organize where you live, where you work. You know, we all need to be standing together right now to defend the gains that we’ve fought for for the last 80 years that we’re seeing wiped away, and it’s gonna take a united fight of all of us standing together to defeat fascism.”
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