One-quarter of NSF grants fund DEI, new report claims
The report was released in early October.
The spike in NSF grants funding DEI has exploded since President Biden took office.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has dedicated more than a quarter of its grants to diversity, equity, and inclusion principles, a new report shows.
“Billions of taxpayer dollars have been awarded to projects that divide Americans and support investigations or publications that are of questionable scientific value,” the report finds. The analysis is titled “Division, Extremism, Idelogy: How the Biden-Harris NSF Politicized Science.”
The report, authored by U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Ranking Member Ted Cruz and acquired by The Free Press last week, reveals that NSF DEI grants have exploded since President Joe Biden took office four years ago. In 2021, 0.29% of NSF grants funded DEI projects, but that number is now 27%, according to the report.
“In recent years, Democrat administrations have deliberately inserted political ideology into scientific investigation while cloaking their actions as an effort to uphold integrity—in other words, injecting bias while claiming to root it out,” the report says.
The report points to explicit instructions from President Biden’s administration that direct grant funds toward DEI. A 2022 government analysis paper called “Protecting the Integrity of Government Science sets a benchmark of “Incorporat[ing] DEIA considerations into all aspects of science planning, execution, and communication.”
“Such a deliberate approach can help mitigate bias and ensure research efforts help to build an evidence base of effective approaches to advancing science and equity,” the paper says.
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Cruz’s report argues that this constitutes the transformation of NSF grants from encouraging research to engendering ideology.
“The Biden-Harris administration has methodically weaponized federal agencies to drive a partisan, divisive agenda,” it says. “President Biden and Vice President Harris tasked federal science agencies to restructure scientific investigation into an exercise in categorizing individuals by their background, not by their talent and capabilities.”
The policy result is the rejection of a process meant to advance American “security and prosperity.”
Campus Reform has reported many examples of National Science Foundation grants funding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on college and university campuses. Those grants include $50,000 to study “white supremacist extremism,” $4.5 million for an “equity center” at LSU, $1 million to redesign biology classes to conform with gender ideology, and $50,000 for a DEI math conference.
Campus Reform contacted the National Science Foundation for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.
