Cruz released a database of more than 3,400 “questionable” university research projects, which he accused of promoting DEI and advancing “neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda.”
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Federally funded scientific research has become the latest target of the diversity antagonists now in control of Congress and the White House.
Earlier this month, Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas released a database of “questionable” university research projects—funded by the National Science Foundation to the tune of $2.04 billion—that he accused of pushing “a far-left ideology” by promoting diversity, equity and inclusion and advancing “neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda,” according to a news release from his office.
Cruz, who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, called for “significant scrutiny” of the 3,400-plus projects listed in the database, which contain terminology he said are related to concepts of status, social justice, gender, race and environmental justice.
“DEI initiatives have poisoned research efforts, eroded confidence in the scientific community, and fueled division among Americans,” Cruz said in the news release. “Congress must end the politicization of NSF funding and restore integrity to scientific research.”
‘Hit List’
Jeremy Young, director of state and higher education policy at the free expression group PEN America, said the database creates “a hit list” for higher education research.
“It identifies as ‘advancing neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda’ an exhaustive list of projects, including efforts to help hospital patients recover from strokes, encourage women to earn computing degrees, build research consortiums among HBCUs, and preserve endangered languages,” Young told Inside Higher Ed in an email. “Censoring these projects because their descriptions include words the government has recently decided it doesn’t like is a sure way to destroy the research enterprise in the United States.”
The release of Cruz’s database is the latest development in his ongoing crusade against the NSF, which sends billions in scientific research and education grants to colleges and universities each year.
One month before President Donald Trump’s election, Cruz—then ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation—released a report accusing the NSF under then-president Joe Biden of spending roughly 10 percent of the agency’s total budget on projects that “mask Marxist social ideology as rigorous and thoughtful investigation.”
The report grouped the flagged projects into one or more of the following five categories:
- Status, defined as “grants that described persons based on their membership in a population deemed underrepresented, underserved, socioeconomically disadvantaged, or excluded.”
- Social justice, defined as grants that “prioritized inclusivity over scientific advancements and achievements.”
- Gender, defined as grants that “went beyond attempts to provide opportunities to increase female participation in science,” including many projects that “casually yet authoritatively asserted, without evidence, that white men were barriers to opportunity.”
- Race, including awards given to programs aimed at addressing “racial inequity and White Supremacy.”
- Environmental justice, defined as projects claiming “environmental sciences must be investigated through the lens of left-wing social activism.”
The October report listed hundreds of phrases and keywords—including “female,” “climate change” and “segregation”—that were used to categorize the projects. Two weeks into Trump’s second term, those were among the terms the NSF, which temporarily paused grant reviews last month, said it was hunting for as part of its compliance with the president’s anti-DEI executive orders.
A Conundrum for Researchers
But the extensive list of now-verboten terms presents a conundrum for researchers who have long been required—through an act of Congress—to explain how their research benefits society in the “Broader Impacts” section of NSF grant applications.
And it’s part of the reason why seemingly noncontroversial projects—including a study on photovoltaic semiconductors at Arizona State University, a rural science teacher prep initiative at Fort Hays State University in Kansas and research on a novel vehicle theft protection device at the University of Michigan—found their way into Cruz’s database.
As of Tuesday, the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide on the NSF’s own website still used some of the targeted terms to explain how the Broader Impacts section supports the agency’s “goal of increasing the representation and diversity of individuals, organizations, and geographic regions that contribute to STEM teaching, research, and innovation.”
(A frequently asked questions page on the NSF’s website regarding the implementation of Trump’s executive orders also clarifies that in evaluating proposals, the agency “continues to apply the statutorily required Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts review criteria, as well as any solicitation-specific review criteria.”)
With that guidance still in place, “I have no idea how a researcher is supposed to characterize the broader impacts of the scientific work they’re doing given the list of terms that’s been published as being off-limits,” said Kedron Thomas, an NSF-funded researcher at the University of Delaware, whose nearly completed project on turning used clothing into new textiles was flagged in the database for engaging three out of the five categories Cruz wants to eliminate—social justice, status and environmental justice.
She added that Cruz’s assertions that such concepts merely distract from true scientific research undermine the overarching goals of scientific inquiry and discovery.
“It’s a strange idea to think that science is completely separate from society and in no way [influences] the world around us,” Thomas said. “We can’t have scientific advances if scientists aren’t also paying attention to social dynamics and social issues.”
And as for the database flagging her and thousands of other scientists’ projects as agents of “neo-Marxist” propaganda, she interprets it as little more than a “scare tactic.”
“It’s something that’s probably appealing to particular segments of the population and perhaps makes it seem as if the federal government is cracking down,” Thomas said. “I see this as causing delays and a lot of uncertainty, but at the end of the day, it’s unlikely to change much more than the specific words that are used to describe the work researchers are doing.”
