The administration of US President Donald Trump is raising deep concerns in academia and science by repeatedly implementing policies that are seen as deeply interfering with research and higher education .
From cutting billions of dollars in funding to threatening to dissolve federal science agencies, this wave of change is putting America's global scientific leadership at risk of collapse.
Within his first 100 days in office, President Trump took several "shocking" actions, including mass layoffs at federal research institutions, banning the use of terminology related to gender and climate change, and tightening control over universities through financial threats.
Professor Paul Edwards from Stanford University shared: "Never in my more than 40 years of career have I witnessed anything like this in America."
More than 1,900 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have issued a collective warning, calling the funding controls “a full-scale attack on the core mission of science: the search for truth.”
They called on the authorities to put an end to these harmful actions and mobilized the public to protect the nation's knowledge base.
According to Jennifer Jones, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Alliance of Concerned Scientists, the current campaign is much more systematic and larger in scale than it was during Trump's first term.
She argued that these moves clearly reflect the content of “Project 2025”—a policy blueprint—calling for the reform or dissolution of agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has been accused of “inciting climate alarm.”
Political interference is also undermining long-standing academic institutions. Harvard University has become a focal point, facing funding freezes, threats of losing its tax exemption status, and restrictions on international student enrollment.
These measures were justified by the government as a fight against "awakeningism" and anti-Semitism, but many experts see them as a politicization of education.
The fear of a "brain drain" is also gradually becoming a reality as many researchers begin to leave the US, while countries like France have already prepared laws to welcome "scientific refugees."
Professor Daniel Sandweiss of the University of Maine warns that these moves risk losing an entire generation of future talent.
Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/my-dung-truoc-nguy-co-suy-mat-vi-the-dan-dau-khoa-hoc-toan-cau-post1034562.vnp
Comment (0)