February update: Giving up is not an option
Giving up is not an option
We are witnessing the indiscriminate ransacking of core institutions. Not surprisingly for this administration, which showed an astonishing antipathy towards science the first time around, scientists are taking an especially hard hit.
In a little over a month, the returning administration has slashed $4 billion in funding for medical research; purged entire pages, data sets, and all references to climate change from agency websites; and ordered a pause on external communication and international collaboration by federal employees.
The scope of the damage unfolding before us is grotesque and will take serious effort to overcome.
Giving up is not an option. And we’re in it for the long haul.
We are working with a number of scientists, including federal researchers, seeking legal help and guidance as they navigate what this administration’s actions mean for them personally and professionally. These courageous individuals have decided to fight back, and we are proud to stand with them.
With our partners at the Sabin Center, we also continue to update the Silencing Science Tracker and document each new anti-science atrocity committed by the government. We have added about 30 entries – with more in the queue – in the month since Trump returned to office. (It is worth noting that the tracker, which now stands at close to 600 entries, was started in 2017 in response to the first Trump administration’s anti-science efforts.)
We are one small but mighty part of a much larger fight. People are working tirelessly to preserve now-purged federal environmental and other data. Across the country, thousands of pro-science, pro-democracy Americans have shown up in sub-zero temperatures to demand a return to sanity, with more actions in the works. And dozens of lawsuits are making their way through the courts, including some promising cases; meanwhile, the Trump administration has already backtracked on a number of firings and other actions (see some examples here, here, here, here, and here).
We are proud to be part of the efforts to safeguard science, reality, and our democratic institutions.
If you can, please consider supporting our work.
Please note that things are moving very quickly and may have changed by the time you read this newsletter.
News & Updates
CSLDF Supports Protecting Higher Education Records
February 7, 2025 I CSLDF
Newly returned President Trump has swamped the recent news cycle with numerous anti-science actions undertaken within the federal government, but state-level actions are also critical.
Inside the race to archive the US government’s websites
February 7, 2025 | MIT Technology Review
“These are irreplaceable repositories of important climate information,” says Lauren Kurtz, CSLDF executive director. “So fiddling with them or deleting them means the irreplaceable loss of critical information. It’s really quite tragic.”
February 21, 2025 | Tagesschau
“Of course, we haven’t yet seen the full extent of what they have in store,” says Kurtz. At the moment, however, one can observe how attempts to fire researchers are already being made “much more aggressively.”