Inside Higher Ed, August 2025
Since Inauguration Day, the Trump administration has repeatedly frozen and terminated research funding for seemingly political reasons. Federal agencies have ended grants for studies because they allegedly advanced diversity, equity and inclusion or “gender ideology,” and they’ve cut off research dollars across the board for some universities to pressure them to crack down on pro-Palestine advocacy and bar transgender women from women’s sports.
But, late last week, the president laid out new processes for how he wants “senior appointees” to take charge of awarding, or denying, new federal grants. He also ordered that they regularly review grants that have already been awarded—and consider terminating them.
The executive order, in one sense, puts into writing the administration’s ongoing efforts to assert greater control over who receives grants and for what kinds of research. But researchers and those who advocate for them and their institutions also say some aspects of the order escalate this campaign. Moreover, they say the political review threatens to further slow the flow of federal research funding over all.
