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0MAGA’s assault on science is an act of grievous self-harm
America will pay the price most of all
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May 21, 2025, The Economist
The attacks have been fast and furious. In a matter of months the Trump administration has cancelled thousands of research grants and withheld billions of dollars from scientists. Projects at Harvard and Columbia, among the world’s best universities, have been abruptly cut off. A proposed budget measure would slash as much as 50% from America’s main research-funding bodies. Because America’s technological and scientific prowess is world-beating, the country has long been a magnet for talent. Now some of the world’s brightest minds are anxiously looking for the exit.
Why is the administration undermining its own scientific establishment? On May 19th Michael Kratsios, a scientific adviser to President Donald Trump, laid out the logic. Science needs shaking up, he said, because it has become inefficient and sclerotic, and its practitioners have been captured by groupthink, especially on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). You might find that reasonable enough. Look closely at what is happening, though, and the picture is alarming. The assault on science is unfocused and disingenuous. Far from unshackling scientific endeavour, the administration is doing it grievous damage. The consequences will be bad for the world, but America will pay the biggest price of all.
One problem is that actions are less targeted than the administration claims, as our special Science section this week explains. As Mr Trump’s officials seek to stamp out DEI, punish universities for incidents of antisemitism and cut overall government spending, science has become collateral damage. A suspicion that scientists are pushing “woke” thinking has led grant-makers to become allergic to words like “trans” and “equity”. As a consequence, it is not only inclusive education schemes that are being culled, but an array of orthodox science. Funding has been nixed for studies that seek, say, to assess cancer risk factors by race, or the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases by sex.
The attack on elite universities takes this to an illogical extreme. Because the White House sees colleges as bastions of wokeness and antisemitism, it has withheld funding for research at Harvard and Columbia, no matter in which subject. Overnight, projects on everything from Alzheimer’s disease to quantum physics have been stopped. When scientists warn of the harm this does, they risk being seen as part of a scornful anti-MAGA elite that has been protected for too long.
More fundamentally, the claim that Mr Trump will stop groupthink is disingenuous. MAGA reserves a special hatred for public-health and climate researchers, whom it regards as finger-wagging worrywarts determined to suppress Americans’ liberties—as they did in lockdowns and school closures during covid-19. The consequence is that spending on vaccine and climate research will be gutted most viciously of all. With the stroke of a pen, officials are trying to impose new rules that tell scientists what areas of inquiry they may pursue and what is off-limits—a shocking step backwards for a republic founded on the freethinking values of the Enlightenment.
