North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest HBCU in the country, has been on a yearslong mission to become one of the first to reach R1 status — a distinction from the Carnegie Foundation that denotes a university as having high research activity, but the president’s intervention on federal funding could slow that down, said Joseph Graves, a biology professor.
Trump's DEI order leaves academic researchers fearing for political influence over grants President Donald Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in programs receiving federal money has thrown into doubt the future of research Kendra Dahmer has been doing on intestinal parasites in India and Benin.
New scrutiny on federal research grants could also hurt students at HBCUs who have federally funded fellowships for research, Graves said.
Universities, which received almost $60 billion for research in the 2023 fiscal year, have been mostly quiet, explaining in statements to their staff and students they are still trying to clarify the executive order's implications for their research funding.
Even though there is no clarity on the new policies yet, some projects already have been put on hold amid uncertainty over the future of research touching on issues related to diversity, said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.
