NSF & NEH Budgets; State of the Union; DEI on Campus
BU IN DC
Muhammad Zaman of the Center for Forced Displacement discussed his book We Wait for a Miracle: Health Care and the Forcibly Displaced during a talk at the Wilson Center on March 7th.
Tami Gouveia of the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health met with Massachusetts and Illinois Congressional offices to discuss integrating social workers into health care settings on March 7th.
Rebecca Ray of the Global Development Policy Center testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission regarding shifting global supply chains and Chinese investment in Mexico on March 1st.
CONGRESS APPROVES NSF, NASA, DOE, NEH BUDGETS
Congress is on track to approve the fiscal year 2024 budgets for several science and cultural agencies this week, more than five months after the start of the federal fiscal year. The final budgets, as compared to fiscal year 2023, are as follows:
- National Science Foundation: $9.06 billion, an 8% decrease
- NASA Science: $7.33 billion, a 5.9% decrease
- Department of Energy Office of Science: $8.2 billion, a 1.7% increase
- ARPA-E: $460 million, a 2.1% decrease
- National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities: $207 million each, a 0% increase
The NSF cuts are particularly disappointing given the overwhelming support for the CHIPS and Science Act, which authorized doubling NSF’s budget and tasked the agency with creating large-scale innovation programs. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the funding package today. Congress has set a March 22nd deadline to complete work on the remainder of the FY24 federal budget, which includes student aid and medical research agencies.
BIDEN STATE OF THE UNION HIGHLIGHTS HEALTH RESEARCH, PELL GRANTS
During a State of the Union address on Thursday night that focused on foreign policy and American democracy, President Joe Biden also highlighted his commitment to medical research and student aid. The President touted his proposal to spend $12 billion on the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research and asked lawmakers to continue to invest in the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Health (ARPA-H), which he said “reminds(s) us that we can do big things like end cancer as we know it.” Biden also called for increasing spending on Pell Grants for low-income college students and underscored the Administration’s work to fix the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARS CRITIQUES OF CAMPUS DIVERSITY WORK
On Thursday, the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development held a contentious hearing entitled, “Divisive, Excessive, Ineffective: The Real Impact of DEI on College Campuses.” Subcommittee Republicans invited witnesses from several conservative think tanks who asserted that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives waste taxpayer money, that anti-bias training has harmed medical education, and that campus diversity offices “are inherently antisemitic.” A witness from a progressive education think tank invited by Subcommittee Democrats countered that the criticisms of campus diversity offices are ideological attacks on democratic principles and academic freedom.