Students are going through the Columbia University campus in New York.Credit: Luiz C. Ribeiro / New York Daily News / TNS / Alamy
Tuesday morning of this week, doctoral student Daniella Fodera woke up at 7 am to a call from his research laboratory in the Biomedical Engineering department of Columbia University, providing devastating news. Its F31 scholarship, a research training subsidy which provides majority of its annual income, had been terminated.
“It was traumatic,” explains Fodera. “I immediately broke tears.”
Post-doctoral students and doctoral students struck by Trump’s repression against science
Fodera, which studies fibroids in the uterus – non -cancer growths that affect 70% to 80% of women at the age of 50, and can cause serious pain and infertility – is only one of the many scientists affected by the decision of the American president Donald Trump to cancel 400 million US dollars in federal subsidies and Columbia contracts, located in New York City. Announced on March 7said the move, said the Trump team, arising from the “continuous inaction of the university to the persistent harassment of Jewish students” and that more cancellations “should follow”.
Most affected people are researchers and students whose subsidies and scholarships come from the United States National Institutes of Health, The largest funder for the world of biomedical research. The agency announced on Monday that it ended the financing of more than $ 250 million – including more than 400 research subsidies – in Columbia.
Several university laboratory leaders, doctoral students and post-doctoral students have expressed their concern Nature On their future in science and their ability to support themselves and their families. Although a complete list of canceled subsidies has not been published, NatureThe reports suggest that scientists at the start of their careers receiving NIH training grants such as the F30, F31, R25 and T32 scholarships are strongly affected. Sources inside the NIH tell Nature That the canceled subsidy lists come from the agency’s extramural research office, which in turn receives them from the NIH parental agency, the American Ministry of Health and Social Services, in coordination with the American Department of Government Effectiveness. The action on the lists is required immediately, often within the hour.
A spokesperson for Columbia said Nature that the university is reviewing the dismissal notices and that “cannot confirm how many cancellations of grants have been received from federal agencies since March 7”. However, she wrote, Columbia “undertakes to work with the federal government to restore the federal funding of Columbia”.
Losses for the public
Jamie Daw, laboratory manager at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, was also caught by surprise when the news of the subsidy arrived. Daw, who studies how policies affect the ability of women of reproductive age and pregnant people to access health services, received email on Monday evening.
American universities reduce doctoral admissions in the midst of Trump Science’s financing cuts
The University said that its subsidy – which supported around 20 people – had been canceled with immediate effect and that it had to stop its work and inform employees inside and outside Columbia.
“It hurts,” said Daw. “We really try to work in the public interest – we strive to improve the crisis of maternal mortality in the United States.” (In the United States, maternal mortality rates are high Compared to other high income nations, especially in black women. ))
Some postdoctoral scholarship holders of Columbia are protected to lose their positions despite a lack of funding because they are part of a union which has an agreement with the university. It is therefore the responsibility of university staff members such as laboratory chiefs to try to find funds for post-doctoral students who have their subsidies at the end, explains Sherida de Leeuw, president of the union.
“If I did not have this protection, my last salary check would have been two weeks ago and I would be on the street now,” explains Columbia Postdoc Gordon Petty, who was informed Tuesday morning that his T32 training subsidy to study schizophrenia was canceled. “It is difficult to know what the immediate benefits of this will be, but at this stage, I believe that my university career is over effectively,” he said.
The demonstrators barricaded themselves in a university building at the University of Columbia during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in April 2024.Credit: Alex Kent / Getty
Columbia misfortunes have their roots Campus demonstrations that broke out after Israel has invaded Gaza After the attacks on October 7, 2023 in Hamas, an Islamist organization designated by certain countries as a terrorist group. Twelve hundred people died during Hamas attacks and about 250 were taken hostage. Some students from Columbia and other universities across the United States qualified the response of disproportionate Israel, highlighting more than 48,000 deceased Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. But some Jewish students felt threatened by demonstrations.
Trump, who said that he wanted to get rid of the American education system for “leftist indoctrination”, wrote on its social social network social social on March 4 That “all federal funding will stop for any college, school or university which authorizes illegal events”.
On Monday, the Office of Civil Rights of the United States Ministry of Education had Letters sent to 60 universitiesIncluding Columbia, warning them potential application measures if they do not “fulfill their obligations to protect Jewish students on the campus”.