Hundreds of scientists and students overtook Raleigh’s Halifax Mall Friday to call for an end to the Trump administration’s attacks on funding for the sciences and higher education, warning of calamity for North Carolina’s research economy.
Part of a nationwide “Stand Up for Science” protest that drew crowds from San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza to Boston Common—including a crowd of thousands outside the Lincoln Memorial—the demonstration at noon in Raleigh took aim at President Donald Trump’s cuts to cancer research, support of anti-vaccine activists, and threats toward universities around the country.
The demonstration comes nearly eight years after the Raleigh March for Science, when the scientists of the Research Triangle first mobilized against the Trump administration’s cuts to scientific funding. Speakers Friday warned that today the crisis is far darker.
“Because of the rhetoric that we heard in the 2016 campaign, I knew science was facing a grim future,” said Jamie Vernon, CEO of the research honor society Sigma Xi. “Now, we find ourselves at a critical juncture once more. The assaults on science have intensified, and the stakes have never been higher. Our future hinges on whether we choose to defend and uphold scientific integrity.”
The protest did the unthinkable: it brought together students from Duke, UNC, and NC State for the same cause. Different sections of the crowd cheered as Vernon named an array of North Carolina’s premier universities and technical schools.
Nyssa Tucker, a Ph.D. student at UNC Chapel Hill and a member of the campus workers union, outlined a set of fundamental demands for the Trump administration as the rally kicked off: resume and expand funding for the sciences; reinstate fired federal workers; end censorship and political interference in research; and defend diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
“Science is for everyone; science keeps us safe and enables us to live longer, healthier lives,” Tucker said to cheers. “We call on leaders at every level, regardless of political affiliation, to champion and protect scientific research, education, and communication for the progress, prosperity, and wellbeing of us all.”
‘Defend, Not Defund’
Trump has sought to slash funding by the National Institutes of Health in particular, aiming to implement an across-the-board 15% cap on funding for the “indirect costs” of research—a change that a federal judge in Massachusetts said would cause “immediate, devastating, and irreparable” harm to universities.
Federal funding for indirect costs, also known as facilities and administrative costs, helps pay the wages of the many North Carolinians who work to maintain and assist research institutions—as one protester’s sign put it, “indirect costs are blue collar wages.”
“Those are people who live in my neighborhood,” said Mark Peifer, a cancer cell biology researcher at UNC Chapel Hill. “Right down the street from me is a person who made our fruit fly food, is a person who fixes the cold room when it goes down.”
Peifer said it’s up to North Carolinians to make clear to lawmakers the economic impact of these funding cuts. “I don’t know if there’s any point in calling Senator Budd,” he said, “but Senator Tillis has been a strong supporter of that medical research through his entire career, and he can be moved.” Local legislators can also be swayed when their constituents make it clear their jobs are on the line, he added.
Sedona Murphy, a cell biology researcher at Yale, told the crowd she’s concerned cuts to grants will prevent her from paying lab personnel and helping train the next generation of scientists. “There are multiple generations of scientists at stake here, from undergraduates who are getting summer research experiences canceled to postdocs who are losing job opportunities because of hiring freezes,” she said.
Some protesters showed up in part because federal funding for the sciences helped keep them alive. A woman at the front of the crowd with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, carried a sign reading “NIH Funding Helps Research My Rare Terminal Disease.” Amber McGuire, an entomologist who studies crop pests, said without recent medical discoveries, her form of breast cancer would not have been treatable.
“I feel like people take for granted until there’s a time when you need treatment, or however it impacts your life, that this research is important,” McGuire said. “The same thing that saved my life, I want it to be there for somebody else.”
Attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility
Many of the Trump administration’s clashes with universities have stemmed from the president’s push to ban all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education.
That sets up a clash with research and educational institutions, who have sought to give students from historically marginalized communities an equal opportunity to succeed in the sciences.
Johnna Frierson, the associate dean of DEI for the basic sciences at Duke Medical School, condemned attacks on programs that aim to give all students a chance to become researchers regardless of background. A Black woman from Rock Hill, S.C., who is the first in her family to earn a Ph.D., Frierson, said these initiatives are vital to defend aspiring scientists who are told they “don’t belong.”
“I’ve earned my place to be here, and I’ve earned my place to have a voice and share my message,” Frierson said. “If someone wants to call me a DEI hire, make sure the DEI stands for ‘definitely earned it.’”
Protesters have called on Duke to stand up to Trump’s crackdown on DEI, arguing the university has the resources to maintain its values. The federal government has threatened to revoke funding to schools that do not shutter their DEI initiatives.
Murphy said she worries her grant applications will be rejected by artificial intelligence processes for including commitments to DEI or for relying on stem cell research, which draws ardent opposition from some conservative groups.
“I could have easily been turned away from this career because I’m from a single-parent household, working class, no family support navigating college, let alone graduate school,” Murphy said. “Whether it was funding for summer research in college or access to community-building resources in graduate school, I would not be a scientist standing before you without diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives.”
‘An endangered species’
Also taking center stage at Friday’s rally were researchers whose work protects the environment—from drinking water to the global climate—who condemned Trump’s inaction on climate change and opposition to research exploring it.
David DeMaster, who researched climate science at NC State for four decades and is now a professor emeritus, said he thinks Trump poses an even greater threat to the environment than he did when he first came into office.
“I think Trump didn’t know what to expect in 2017, and now he’s doing everything that he can in his last term,” DeMaster said. “I’m a scientist—I got a lot of my funding for 42 years from the National Science Foundation, and those cuts are crippling in terms of conducting science.”
Emily Sutton, a riverkeeper for the Haw River, said her work fighting against pollution depends on the work of scientists, including research findings that are often inconvenient to large corporations. Without that research, North Carolinians living on the Haw River would not know their water is toxic to drink.
“These families are using bottled water to drink, to brush their teeth, to bathe their children, to cook with, and they’re no longer eating the foods that come out of their garden because now we know with scientific evidence that those exposure levels will cause cancer,” Sutton said. “We cannot push for these policies and protections without the sound science to back it up.”
Dani Lin Hunter, a research and education manager with the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, said it’s this research that keeps air and drinking water safe and holds polluters accountable when they threaten public health. She noted that the environmental justice movement started here in North Carolina in 1982, when Black residents of Warren County took a stand against a hazardous waste dump in their community.
“The relentless attacks on science are not abstract. They are deeply personal, and they are affecting you and your loved ones, and they are affecting me and my loved ones. I share your rage today,” Hunter said. “My plea for you is to remember that rage when you obtain justice—because I do believe, perhaps naively but fiercely, that justice will come for you.”
