Alice Pawley

National Science Foundation employees’ dissent declaration on ‘indefinite hold’ Document's postponement follows recent suspension of staff at Environmental Protection Agency for releasing similar declaration

National Science Foundation employees’ dissent declaration on ‘indefinite hold’
www.chemistryworld.com/news/nationa... #NSF

National Science Foundation Workers to Issue “Alexandria Declaration” Decrying “Catastrophic Changes” Under Trump Administration (UPDATED) The new declaration echoes similar efforts from NIH and EPA.

National Science Foundation Workers to Issue “Alexandria Declaration” Decrying “Catastrophic Changes” Under Trump Administration (UPDATED)
www.importantcontext.news/p/national-s... #NSF

Digital flyer for a virtual event titled “Calling Swing Districts – Save Scientific Research Funding.” The event is scheduled for Thursday, July 17th at 3:00 PM PT and will be held online. The flyer invites people to help call South Asian voters in Republican-held swing districts to encourage them to contact their representatives about proposed cuts to scientific research funding. It states that the Trump administration plans to cut 38% from the NIH and 55% from the NSF and has already withheld $3.8 billion in NIH funding. The event will also include calls to moderate Republican Senators to oppose cuts to NPR and PBS. At the bottom is a QR code and the logo for Stand Up for Science, along with a note that the RSVP link is available at Standupforscience.net. The background includes a red-toned image of the Statue of Liberty.

📣 UPCOMING EVENT ALERT -

🗓️ Thursday, July 17
🕒 3PM PT
📍 Online
📞 Join the call campaign to defend science.
🔗 scan the QR code or RSVP here ➡️ actionnetwork.org/events/calli...

#StandUpForScience
#SummerFightForScience

It’s our mission to shed light on the National Science Foundation’s impact on American innovation and leadership. We are fighting to protect funding for scientific research that could change the world. Share your experience with the NSF and share this post. #saveNSF

www.savensf.com

HUD secretary's hostile takeover of the NSF building have angered NSF employees

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years.

NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

"Indeed, the Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime."

“The demonstrations against Trump have not stopped. And they are every single day.”

We’re taking to the streets on June 14 to deny Trump’s fascist birthday wish. There are already events planned in all 50 states for No Kings Day — please join us: www.nokings.org?SQF_SOURCE=i...

NSF slashes number of ‘rotators’ and well-paid managers as part of restructuring Smaller future budgets will require fewer people, NSF official tells staff

1. After getting some further insight into changes at NSF (thanks to those who reached out), I deleted a previous post where I tried to make sense of Cheatham's memo as reported in the Science story below.

Screenshot of table showing number of grants and total value terminated by NSF directorate. STEM Education directorate is highlighted, with 417 terminations totaling 322 million dollars. CSV of table: Directorate,No. Terminated,Total Value Biological Sciences,46,"$27,960,075" Computer and Information Science and Engineering,85,"$44,630,113" Engineering,94,"$33,472,485" Geosciences,52,"$36,454,740" Mathematical and Physical Sciences,30,"$6,418,312" Office of the Director,7,"$4,859,738" STEM Education,417,"$322,680,063" "Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences",266,"$77,635,904" "Technology, Innovation and Partnerships",46,"$62,231,309"

UPDATE: We have data on >1000 terminated #NSF grants at grant-watch.us. Thanks to all who have been contributing data the past few days.

We've also added a "Reports" section with some analyses. For NSF, we see that the STEM education directorate has been absolutely pummeled.

Long letter from NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, available here: https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/Letter-to-the-Community.pdf

🧪 The NSF director is lying to you.

Let’s fact check 7 claims from yesterday’s letter to the community, while pointing out 3 critical omissions. 🧵

Welcome to the Bluesky account for Stand Up for Science 2025!

Keep an eye on this space for updates, event information, and ways to get involved. We can't wait to see everyone #standupforscience2025 on March 7th, both in DC and locations nationwide!

#scienceforall #sciencenotsilence

Upon learning that yesterday would be my last day as a program officer at the National Science Foundation, I shared this parting message with my colleagues. The next few months will be frenetic and stressful for them. Here are some things that you can do to help them with the mission ahead. (1)

@chrisgeidner.bsky.social is reporting nicely on all this. And spellcheck wants to correct his name to Gender, which is also nice.

We know who the villains are in this coup. But so many heroes are showing up to oppose them, and many of them are federal employees, including judges. I give you supreme boss-hero champion Judge Ana Reyes, telling Team Trump they don't know shit and schooling them in the facts about gender and sex.

Trump officials struggled to reinstate nuclear weapons staff after firing hundreds | CNN Officials backtracked on the terminations Friday after multiple members of Congress petitioned Energy Sec. Chris Wright to reverse course, explaining the dire national security implications.

Obviously high on the list

www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/c...

USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them In a statement, an Agriculture Department spokesperson told NBC News that officials are "working to swiftly rectify the situation."

Ok, starting a thread of these whoops, we accidentally-threw-the engine-overboard moments, send me your faves.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/dog...

This is the guy who fired the nuclear weapons specialists.

The scroll guy who dropped out of the University of Nebraska.

They've started laying people off at #NSF - #NationalScienceFoundation. Started this am. People are gathering in the lobby at the times that employees have been told to leave the building, to say goodbye. It is such a waste.

Records show how DOGE planned Trump’s DEI purge — and who gets fired next A DOGE team plans to fire federal workers who are not in DEI roles and employees in offices that protect equal rights, internal documents show.

Call it what it is: a plan to re-segregate the federal workforce. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Judge John D. Bates of the D.C. Federal District Court has ordered the CDC to temporarily restore pages removed from its website to comply with Trump’s executive order barring references to race, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

The Nature of Our Power: A Conversation with political scientist Erica Chenoweth By Rebecca Solnit • 8 Feb 2025 View in browser "The best study on the subject in my opinion suggests that in the long term, institutions really can’t save us; that civil society and mass mobilization are a more potent check on a backsliding democracy in the long term than relying on institutional checks and balances alone." That's what political scientist Erica Chenoweth told me when I asked them if we could have a conversation (by email, below in full) about the current constitutional crisis/coup attempt and what we can do about it. Chenoweth is a hugely influential scholar of nonviolent social change, best known for their empirical research that not only documents what makes civil resistance work but demonstrates that it works, often extremely effectively. They direct the Nonviolent Action Lab, which studies how people have built movements and developed strategies to resist authoritarianism successfully and documents how nonviolence can be effective. There's no one I wanted to hear from more in this constitutional crisis, and I'm grateful I can share their insights with all of you.

"The best study on the subject in my opinion suggests that in the long term, institutions really can’t save us; that civil society and mass mobilization are a more potent check on a backsliding democracy in the long term..." meditations-in-an-emergency.ghost.io/the-nature-o...

A few years ago when they came after African American studies and women’s and gender studies scientists were like oh this is bad but we aren’t going to get super worked up about it and now y’all are finding out that you were next

Move in solidarity accordingly

🧪

If your boss or company tells you to do something unethical: don't say yes. Make them write it down.

Trump once again requests deep cuts in U.S. science spending But 2020 budget request likely to meet strong opposition in Congress

in his first term, trump’s OMB tried to cut NIH indirects to like 10% every year. the house & senate appropriations subcommittees on labor, HHS, education were GOP-led during the first two years.

this is unconstitutional and unprecedented, yes. but we still hold the line.

from 2019:

Executive wants to frame the NIH indirects cut as $4B in savings.

But given that NIH returns $2.5 on every $1 investment, this would actually cost US economy a net $6 BILLION (per year!). Not to mention the human costs of wrecking education and research sectors and the communities they serve.

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

We Choose to Fight: Nobody Elected Elon! · MoveOn **Rally at the Treasury building to stop Elon Musk’s billionaire takeover.** Nobody elected Elon! We need everyone to fight this hostile takeover at every level—that includes Democrats in Congress, wh...

TOMORROW: We’re rallying at the Treasury building with @moveon.org to stop Elon Musk’s hostile takeover and tell this unelected billionaire to get his hands off our money. We hope you can join us if you’re in the D.C. area.