Sophia Brueckner

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students

“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”

SIGNATURES For Cornell University: Michael I. Kotlikoff President of Cornell University Office of the President 300 Day Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 Ben the Winited States (including but not limited to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Servives and the U.S, Department of Education): /N istant Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20530 For the Department of Health and Human Services: Paula Matana S Paula M. Stannard Director, Office for Civil Rights U.S. Department of Health & Human Services 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20201 Effective Date: 14/7/2025.

BREAKING: Cornell caved.

Here is the settlement agreement, signed today by the university's president, Michael Kotlikoff: statements.cornell.edu/2025/documen...

Federal court refuses to block Alabama’s “divisive concepts” law, says university faculty classroom speech is government speech with no First Amendment protection. This dangerous development allows lawmakers to dictate what professors say in class. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

ASU Projects 18% Drop in International Student Enrollment Arizona State University typically welcomes over 17,900 international students to its four campuses each year, but this fall, due to a variety of complications, the university expects only 14,600 inte...

One in three new international students at Arizona State University are waiting on student visas to come through. Difficulties in getting appointments and social media reviews are key drivers.

This creates chaos for faculty and administrators as the new term nears...let alone the students.

Trump Administration Threatens to Seize Valuable Harvard Patents The Trump administration threatened to assume ownership of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of patents from Harvard University, accusing the Ivy League college of failing to comply with the law on federal research grants.

The Trump administration threatened to assume ownership of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of patents from Harvard University, accusing the Ivy League college of failing to comply with the law.

Exclusive: Harvard patents targeted by Trump administration The Trump administration on Friday ordered a comprehensive review of Harvard University's federally funded research programs, and threatened to take title to or grant licenses from the school's lucrative portfolio of patents.

New: Harvard patents targeted by Trump administration - www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Science is effectively dead in the US for at least the next 3½ years, and will then take another several years to even get started again. Canceled research doesn’t just uncancel itself, and scientists who find opportunity elsewhere won’t just come flocking back.

The damage is generational.

Purdue student detained by ICE and taken to troubled Louisiana holding facility Yeonsoo Go, 20, was detained after her immigration hearing in Manhattan and taken away by ICE agents.

Go, a college student, has a dependent visa (her mother, an Episcopal minister, is here on a religious worker visa), which doesn't expire until Dec. But when she tried to renew it early, ICE nabbed her and sent her halfway across the US to a detention center.
www.wthr.com/article/news...

Email from the "PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE" to Kate Starbird asking for all emails from Jan 1 2021 through July 30 2025 with any of the following keywords: "diversity and inclusion" "DEIA" "DEI" "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging" "DEIB" "gender identity" "racial preference" "ESG" "organizational equity" "intersectionality" "anti-racism" "critical race theory" "LGBTQ+" "transgender" "cisgender" "gender ideology" "white privilege" "privilege walk" "cultural humility" "equity audit" "restorative justice" "racial equity" "implicit bias" "microaggressions" "inclusive pedagogy" "identity-based oppression" "systems of oppression" "queer" "non-binary" "sexuality" “Trump” “fascist”

If anyone is curious about the current list of search terms being used by right wing activist organizations to harass university professors, here's a public records request I received today from Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation. Not intimidating or meant to curtail by my speech at all, right?

How US Universities Can Survive State Terrorism BY CATHERINE D’IGNAZIO As a professor at MIT, I find myself navigating strange waters these days. Last semester, I advised the thesis of a student who left the country because she did not fee…

📣 In this short essay, I describe how actions of the current administration constitute ➡️ state terrorism ⬅️ and outline how US universities (and professors and students and staff) can survive state terrorism, as people before us have survived.

academeblog.org/2025/08/05/h...

Headline from Harvard Crimson: "Harvard President Garber Tells Faculty He Is Not Considering a $500 Million Deal With Trump."

Text of story: Harvard prez Garber says report of a deal "was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials." NYT ran with it as a story.

Important details from this story:

1) Yet another news-break by student journalists (this time @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social) www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

2) Harvard saying "see you in court," not "let's make a deal."

3) Per Garber, WH/MAGA leaked news of a "deal." NYT then ran with it.

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation

“The federal government’s actions represent the latest in a pattern of shakedowns against colleges and universities that will certainly chill faculty speech.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

Screenshot of Columbia's settlement with the White House

Columbia University has handed over its undergraduate admissions process to Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, who will now decide at their sole discretion whether the university has admitted enough white people. It's no longer an independent institution.

Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump

You can never bend the knee enough to appease an authoritarian bully.

This is a devastating blow to academic freedom & freedom of speech at Columbia.

Never in the history of this nation has there been an administration so intent on the utter destruction of higher education as we know it.

Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices....

Amazon Ring is introducing a new feature that would allow police to request live-stream access to people’s home security devices.

Helllll no. If you have one of those things, get rid of it. Kill it with fire

Amid all this terrible behavior, this letter is humane, honest, and clear. Any politics that we build to push back against this stuff is best served by this kind of candor and clarity.

State Dept. restarts student visa interviews with tougher social media rules Foreign nationals who seek visas to study in the United States will have to make social media posts public to be scrutinized for hostility toward the U.S.

Breaking news: The State Department is requiring that all student visa applicants make their social media accounts public to be scrutinized for hostility toward the U.S., according to a cable obtained by The Post.

The High-Flying Escalation of CBP's Predator Drone Flights Over LA Custom and Border Protection flying powerful Predator B drones over Los Angeles further breaks the seal on federal involvement in civilian matters typically handled by state or local authorities.

NEW: The CBP confirmed to @404media.co that it has been flying Predator drones over LA amid the protests. These Predator B drones are military-caliber UAVs used for aerial reconnaissance that can be armed.

It further breaks the seal on federal involvement in civilian matters. More here:

Ah lovely, our Assembly Speaker wants to make UW funding increases contingent on a 4-4 load, wants to blame budget crisis (increasingly impossible to hide from the public) on faculty

University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters Revealed: security trailing students on and off campus as video shows investigator faking disability when confronted

Guardian - University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/06/michigan-university-gaz

Bill to give political appointees more oversight over Texas universities wins final passage The latest version of the proposal eliminates language that would have required university curricula not to advocate that “any race, sex, ethnicity or religious belief is inherently superior to…

Texas Lawmakers bent on reshaping the politics of state universities have passed a law that strips power from professors and gives it to political appointees

It also creates a state office with the power to investigate universities and take away their funding

www.texastribune.org/2025/05/24/t...

The United States Justice Department micromanaging how the Harvard Law Review’s internal reprimand of a student editor is insane

UNC faculty concerned over lack of tenure for professors WRAL has obtained a letter from the faculty chair to the dean and chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill expressing concern about a lack of tenure for certain professors.

I’m one of 20 assistant professors in A&S at UNC who has had their tenure decision deferred.

I was planning to spend my summer editing my third book. Now? 🤷🏻‍♀️

www.wral.com/video/unc-fa...

Rubio Ramps Up Pressure on Harvard With Expanded Visa Scrutiny Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday ordered more scrutiny of the social-media profiles of any foreigners seeking to visit Harvard University, telling US consular officers that applicants’ lack of an online presence might be enough evidence to deny a visa.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday ordered more scrutiny of the social-media profiles of any foreigners seeking to visit Harvard University, telling US consular officers that applicants’ lack of an online presence might be enough evidence to deny a visa.

Universities quietly negotiating with White House aide to try to avoid Harvard’s fate, source says | CNN Politics College and university leaders have been privately negotiating with a deputy to top Trump aide Stephen Miller in hopes of avoiding the same aggressive targeting of Harvard University, a person familia...

"We have to bring these universities to their knees." - DOJ official
www.cnn.com/2025/05/31/p...

Rubio Reportedly Pauses New International Student Visa Interviews More than 1.1 million international students were enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities in the 2023-2024 school year.

The US Administration has indefinitely blocked *all* student visa applicants from getting a visa interview.

Worldwide, unconditional, no end date. All.

International students are crucial to the US university system, American innovation, and future US prosperity.

Trump team orders stop to new student visa interviews, as it weighs expanding social media vetting The directive came in a Tuesday cable obtained by POLITICO.

*US ORDERS HALT TO STUDENT VISA INTERVIEWS: POLITICO

after announcing that foreign students are being banned from Havard, Noem warns "this should be a warning to every other university to get your act together."