Trump vs. Science - With the wrecking ball

"This is just the beginning," says Ravi Vakil in a video call. The president of the American Mathematical Society cannot say exactly how many mathematicians have not received a salary or have been laid off this month. Only that the cuts are much more drastic than expected, and there will be even more in the coming year. Some faculties have already imposed a complete hiring freeze.

"We now have to make decisions about which front we fight on, which projects and young scientists we protect and how," says Vakil. He does not seem like someone who raises the alarm lightly. He took up his new post just a few weeks ago, at the beginning of a new era that he describes as "perhaps the most difficult in modern times for free science."

On the grounds of “eradicating woke politics” and “defending American tradition and Western civilization,” the US government under President Donald Trump is attacking universities and science, with profound cuts and reductions in higher education operations.

The government has barely taken office when it has created a blacklist to screen approved grants for undesirable projects and research areas. At the top of the list are keywords such as "community," "cultural heritage," "trauma," "hate speech," "inclusion," " gender ," "discrimination," and "Green New Deal."

It even affects “non-woke” science

On the day of his inauguration, Trump ended the DEI funding programs that promoted diversity, equity and participation in universities and schools . What is new is that the cuts also affect disciplines such as biomedicine and mathematics: basic research that does not deal with "woke" topics such as climate change or racism.

On Tuesday, 168 of the 1,450 employees of the National Science Foundation (NSF) were laid off: specialists in engineering, biology, computer science, geology and chemistry. The NSF is a research agency that finances large parts of basic research. For mathematicians, it is their main source of funding. Now the government wants to cut half of its budget.

Two weeks ago, the government also froze the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - at 47 billion dollars, the world's largest public budget for biomedical research. The NIH's share of state funding for research institutions is to be reduced from 30 to 15 percent. Studies on cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, vaccines and gene mutations are affected.

In North Carolina, for example, universities are among the largest employers. The state is home to two of the best in the country: North Carolina University and Duke University. They have previously received more NIH funding than others, $580 million and $531 million respectively. Now they are the losers of the new administration.

A tax increase of up to 35 percent on university foundation assets is also planned. Employing university resources is a key concern of this government.

"The universities here are wonderful places, they are the crown jewel of the United States," says Vakil, "because free science, non-partisan, was in everyone's interest. Now we are witnessing a destruction of the intellectual infrastructure in the country that may not be reversed for decades."

Trump relies on court decisions

Attorneys general from 22 US states have sued the government over the planned cuts. The lawsuit is directed against the reduction in funding for so-called indirect costs such as laboratory costs, faculty salaries and infrastructure. The court hearing will take place this Friday.

In the USA, Congress is the legislative power. If it has already passed a budget, the president is bound by it - actually. If he tries to withhold the funds anyway, as in the case of the US development agency USAID , he will face legal action against it. But that is precisely the strategy of the current administration: to cause chaos and then leave it to the courts. The decisive factor will be whether it succeeds in doing so before the predominantly conservative judges.

Ravi Vakil is concerned that neither the public nor the media understand the drama of the situation and are jumping into diversionary debates, such as a possible third term for Trump. The biggest fear in the faculties is brain drain: that the best American scientists will migrate to China and Europe in the next few years.

But the mathematician also has faith in the intellectual and scientific foundation, in the power of cooperation and free thought. After the Soviet Union sent the first satellite into space in 1957, thereby robbing the shocked Americans of the illusion that they had a technological lead, the USA took action: they recognized the education system as a crucial power resource and invested in universities.

These things, says Vakil, are not so easy to uproot.