The Trump administration has canceled more than 1,400 National Science Foundation grants, worth more than $1 billion, according to USA Today. Many of these grants were terminated because they were labeled by the Department of Government Efficiency as "wasteful DEI funding."
Liliana Caughman, an assistant professor and senior global futures scientist at Arizona State University, is one of those scientists whose grant was abruptly ended by the Trump administration. Caughman works mostly in the areas of Indigenous studies and sustainability. She was one of the principal investigators on a National Science Foundation grant worth nearly $1.5 million called “Weaving Relations” that focused on graduate-level education specifically for indigenous and Latine students. Those researchers focused on areas including food sovereignty and traditional ecological knowledge.
Caughman joined The Show to talk about her experience, what may come next and what the point of the program was, beyond the actual research students were doing. She wanted to stress that the opinions she expressed are hers and not those of ASU.
Full conversation
LILIANA CAUGHMAN: Yeah, there were a few goals. One of them was to offer new pathways into STEM, where these students who, like I said, come from many different disciplines would have the opportunity to see themselves as scientists, see themselves as researchers, and do it in a way that was related to their cultural and community identities. So, we were trying to also study this as an approach that could be used to help Indigenous and Hispanic, Latine grad students be more confident and be able to be successful if they wanted to continue on in that kind of career or the master's students, which we had many of, if they wanted to go get their PhDs. And then ultimately, see what worked and what didn't share that with others and hopefully have more science identity in these folks so they could go back to their communities and take on important roles that require more skills and education.
MARK BRODIE: So, how did you find out that your funding and this program were being eliminated?
CAUGHMAN: It was a little traumatic. We weren't necessarily surprised, but the way it came in was surprising. So, we knew that when the Trump administration took power, that they were not interested in a lot of, you know “DEI related work and research,” and so we saw some stop work orders come through that like didn't necessarily directly apply to us but gave us some pause, but we were instructed to keep doing the work we were doing.
And then about two weeks ago on a Friday afternoon at 3 p.m., there was just a blanket email that went out to about 50 grants throughout the country, and we were actually in the very first wave of terminations.
BRODIE: What else did the email say?
CAUGHMAN: It said that it said our grant and it said that it's no longer in alignment with National Science Foundation priorities. And then, there were a few requests they had just kind of the typical things that happen when a grant ends naturally that they wanted us to do immediately and the funds stopped flowing immediately. So, we had to fire people, people lost salaries. We had to cancel all of our plans for this summer, so it was very fast and very complete.
BRODIE: How many people did you have to let go?
CAUGHMAN: Well, there were probably three to four graduate students who were in positions that functioned more like a staff position, and yeah, those were the ones that that's their livelihood and it pays their tuition. So, those ones were the hardest and they had to go immediately. Fortunately, we've rehomed many of them, so they're it with other research or positions on campus. And then there's like the theoretical number of students that we kind of let go, but some of their work hadn't started yet, but they were relying on it. So, maybe 30 students affected by that, at that point.
BRODIE: You mentioned that this wasn't necessarily a surprise to you. Was there anything that you could do to try to get ahead of it or plan for these kinds of changes before you got that email?
CAUGHMAN: Yeah, we had been planning for it in some sense, since November.
BRODIE: Since the election.
CAUGHMAN: Yes, yes, and we had some contingency plans. But it was challenging, because when we reached out to the program officers at NSF, they never responded, so we really didn't know where we stood. And also, the administration at ASU had been saying “keep going until you're forced to stop.” So, we had to sort of simultaneously have these background plans while also doing the same level of work, and it was a little more surprising than I think it would have been if we hadn't just the day or two before been meeting with administration at ASU to plan our whole budget for the following year. So, it was seeming a little bit more positive and then it was just completely shut down.
BRODIE: What was that like, like when you had to tell people that they were out of a job and you know, tell people who are hoping to do this program that that the program no longer existed?
CAUGHMAN: It was really hard and really sad. We, as the leadership, were grieving and couldn't really let ourselves feel those feelings because the students are our highest priority and our students come from so many different backgrounds. They are adults, they have lives, some have, you know, have dependents, have kids, other family, and we've been working with many of these students for years. So, that was really hard because we really do try and be strong mentors and advocates for them and we really had very few tools to support them or ourselves through it.
BRODIE: So is there any hope of being able to bring this program back, or is that just it?
CAUGHMAN: Well, I always have hope. Some foundations are offering bridge funding to people who have had their grants terminated, and so we will be applying for that. Unfortunately, we probably had $600,000 left or something like that, and these bridge funding grants are up to $25,000.
BRODIE: So, not really close to what you had lost.
CAUGHMAN: No, definitely not.
BRODIE: What has it been like for you? I mean, you mentioned that you in some ways weren't really able to fully process what happened because you had to make sure that the students were OK and had someone to talk to, like, what have the last few weeks been like for you?
CAUGHMAN: It's truly been just a blur. It's made me feel like the work I do doesn't matter and it's made me concerned for my position within the university, although they, at the university administration level, say that we're all safe, and I do believe that. I'm more thinking about being attacked for the types of work that I do around diversity in science, around working with indigenous communities, around climate change or other types of environmental harms and healing. So yeah, it's just, it's just sort of scary and I feel a little bit like I'm just on unstable ground and I don't know what to do next.
BRODIE: What does it mean for science that your project will not be able to continue?
CAUGHMAN: I was thinking about this yesterday, actually, It's hard to know the impacts. But I think for these tribal communities that a lot of these students come from, it can have a really big impact on their ability to self govern and to have people from their own communities be in science-based roles, which is a real, real problem and something we were trying to help solve.
And then for the greater, you know, societal well-being and status of science, I would say we need people from all different backgrounds to see themselves as scientists, have experiences with research, have experiences working with community and bridging all those gaps, and we need to know how to train people. So, we were studying how to do that better and now we are going to be behind in that area of research and practice.
BRODIE: Do you still believe in the National Science Foundation?
CAUGHMAN: That's a good question. I do, because it has a long history and there has not yet been any thought about getting rid of it entirely. So, I think the United States needs to continue being ahead, and at least caught up internationally, with science. So, I think I believe in it, I just don't know what it really is anymore right now.
