AN UNEXPECTED NEW THREAT TO SCIENCE: The world’s most prestigious grant funding organizations
This editorial addresses the very obvious danger of willfully-biased awarding of research grants by some of the leading granting organizations which – in unison – now increasingly consider grant application based on whether they fulfill DEI expectations rather than on their scientific merits. The editorial further argues that, after invading our education system, medicine, and science in general, the invasion of politics into the awarding of research grants reveals likely the most insidious danger to society and, therefore, very clearly should ring alarm bells.
That political biases have invaded academia, medicine, and sciences in general, is no longer news and, indeed, was likely even a (relatively minor) contributing factor in the outcome of the November election. That the biases of politics, however, to significant degrees also have invaded the awarding of scientific grants has to be considered not only news but, indeed, extremely concerning news. A recent article by Rupa Subramanya in The Free Press has in this regard become a must read for everybody in academia since it laid bare the transformative changes introduced by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in its funding of research.1 One, first of all, is left astonished, then becomes disturbed, and ultimately is left extremely worried because grant funding based on scientific merit to significant degrees seems to have been replaced by funding based on perceived social and political values.
This is how grants claiming to explore “white supremacy” and “non-normative forms of gender and
sexuality” were apparently advanced over much more scientifically-substantial studies with the
potential to change the world, which – at least in its past – had been the goal of the NSF in awarding
grants to researchers. Concluding that DEI has been transforming the NSF, Subramanya’s article
becomes terrible news for anybody interested in maintaining the country’s increasingly shaky lead in
scientific research.
Her Free Press article noted a recent Congressional report (in full disclosure, from Republican members
of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation) based on an analysis of all NSF grants between 2021 and April of 2024 which revealed almost unbelievable numbers: From over $20 billion awarded in grants by the NSF in these approximately three years, over $2 billion (over 10% of
funded grants) no longer prioritized scientific quality in awarding grants but prioritized other aspects of
grant submissions. And this did not happen accidentally, but, according to Subramanya, has become a
central feature of grant-awarding by the NSF.
And the U.S. is, of course not alone in this. We were recently made aware that the U.K.-based Wellcome
Trust, with a £36.8 billion investment portfolio (USD $47,683 billion), instituted similar changes to its
grant selection processes, allegedly awarding between 25% and 33% of total grant evaluation points to
considerations of whether applicants paid appropriate attention to DEI.
How far this redirection of grant support by the NSF has gone off into the political becomes obvious if
one looks at some of the grant recipients: Marwa Elshakry in the Congressional report was found to be a
co-recipient of a grant (and to be fully transparent again, considering many other cited grants, it was a
relatively small-sum grant) meant to identify how (and, yes, this almost impossible-to-understand word
scramble was really the chosen subject of the application) “hegemonic narratives have sought to
obfuscate not only the contemporary existence of non-normative sexual experiences in certain national
contexts, but also aimed to bury any historical traces of non-normative forms of gender and sexuality”
(1).
She being a grant recipient of the NSF is of interest for several reasons: (i) The subject of her grant
apparently does not correspond to what Columbia University describes as her area of specialty (see
footnote to figure above); (ii) As Subramanya notes in her article, Elshakry and her co-recipient on the
grant, history student Jamil Sbitan, were among several grant recipients from the NSF who held
leadership positions of prominence during the campus protests against Israel at Columbia University
where the unrests and encampments at university campuses around the country had their beginning
after the events of October 7, 2023. (iii) Considering that Elshakry allegedly justified the October 7
massacre by Hamas, was allegedly since November of 2023 a “coordinating member” of the Columbia
anti-Israel group called Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine-CBT (FSJP-CBT) (3), and therefore – very
obviously – must be viewed as a supporter of Hamas and the organization’s policies in Gaza, the subject
of her NSF grant can only be viewed as hypocritical in view of how the subjects addressed in this project
would be viewed by Hamas in Gaza.
Interestingly, Elshakry is according to Subramanya on (we assume paid) leave this semester, which is
how Columbia University has been avoiding firing many faculty members who, after October 7,
breeched Columbia University rules (and often federal laws). In “laying low” in its responses to obvious
transgressions by students and faculty members after the October 7 in support of the atrocities
committed by Hamas, the administration of Columbia University, as just recently was revealed, followed
the rather shocking advice of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Dem., NY; and, interestingly, the
highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the country), recently released in a report from the House
Education and the Workforce Committee. The report claims that Schumer allegedly advised the then-
President of the university, Minouche Shafik, after pro-Hamas violence had broken out on campus, “to
keep heads down” and not to be concerned about the horrors because “political problems are really
only among Republicans” (4).
The obscenity of Schumer’s words, of course, go far beyond just the fact that he is Jewish. We, indeed,
would argue that one’s religion – as much as possible – should not affect one’s politics. But what makes
this alleged Schumer episode so obscene is that it reflects how the politics (of the left) in the country
have assumed full control over higher education with full cooperation from the educational
establishment at even the nation’s most prominent universities.
But since we are already talking about Chuck Schumer, whose political base from the very beginning has
been in Brooklyn, and especially in the Jewish Orthodox community, he, indeed, increasingly resembles
Senator Bernie Sanders (Dem., VT, and another prominent senator of Jewish descent) in his anti-Israeli
activism, first by attacking the qualifications of the current Israeli prime minister and, absurdly, accusing
him of being “a barrier to peace with Hamas.” But probably even more surprisingly, Schumer has for
months been singlehandedly blocking the passage of the so-called Antisemitism Awareness Act by the
Senate after it passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support (320 to 91), by refusing to bring
it to a vote. And what has been the reason? According to reports in the media, because “it divides
Democrats” (4).
This bill would define antisemitism by including anti-Zionism in the definition, of course a point opposed
by the Democrats’ extreme left with obvious strong sympathies for Hamas. The bill would also force
colleges and universities toward stronger enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, once
again—considering the Democrat party’s extreme left—not what their ideology prescribes.
What all of this demonstrates is that the antisemitism that surfaced its ugly head after October 7, 2023,
is only a symptom of a much bigger crisis in society. Medically speaking, the symptom is antisemitism,
but the disease is an education system that, from kindergarten throughout college and university, is now
controlled by ideological zealots with the so-far successful intent – as the last year well demonstrated –
to indoctrinate our children and grandchildren in their revolutionary theories. And as the article by
Subramanya in The Free Press laid bare, the disease has also infected our major research funding
organizations, turning them into funders of the disease and, thereby, providing further nutritional
support to the cancer.
References
1. Subramanya R. The Free Press. October 10, 2024. https://x.com/TheFP/status/1844061951556714998
2. Columbia University. https://history.columbia.edu/person/elshakry-marwa/
3. Canary Mission. https://canarymission.org/professor/Marwa_Elshakry
4. The Editorial Board. New York Post. November 1, 2024. https://nypost.com/2024/11/01/opinion/traitor-chuck-schumer-sold-out-to-pro-hamas-thugs-at-columbia/