Our National Science Foundation Has Given Over $2 Billion to DEI Projects
Bonus: A podcast with me talking Ace of Spades HQ’s JJ Sefton and CBD about the challenges that science in this nation faces.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the federal government established in 1950. Its original mission was to promote the advancement of science and engineering through funding and support for research and education.
Nowhere in that mission statement do the words diversity, equity, or inclusion (DEI) appear. The NSF was intended to promote and support ground-breaking research and development that would help this nation (and perhaps all mankind as well). It was not intended to be a social welfare agency.
But in the Biden Administration’s push to foist DEI on this nation, a staggering amount of money has gone to promote this racialist travesty. The pace of funding distribution has increased exponentially: In 2021, only 0.29% of NSF grants funded DEI projects; by 2024, this increased to 27% of grants.
In its first week, the Biden-Harris administration mandated that all taxpayer-funded scientific research and development (R&D) must incorporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) values. Sen. Cruz’s investigation found that in response to this directive, NSF allocated over $2.05 billion to thousands of research projects that promoted neo-Marxist perspectives or DEI tenets.
Taxpayer dollars supported projects of questionable scientific merit, often led by researchers who used federal R&D dollars to drive divisive, extremist ideologies in their classrooms and on their campuses.
The Committee’s analysis identified 3,483 grants—over 10% of all NSF grants awarded during the Biden-Harris administration—totaling more than $2.05 billion went to questionable projects that promoted DEI or pushed neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle. The Committee grouped these grants into five categories: Status, Social Justice, Gender, Race, and Environmental Justice.
The report reveals, through examples across categories, that many of the most extreme research proposals were led by principal investigators who are also promoting radical perspectives through on-campus activism and in their classrooms.
This funding is a non-trivial issue. NSF provides approximately 25% of all federally supported basic research conducted at U.S. colleges and universities, with an annual budget of about $9.9 billion for fiscal year 2023. So, a huge percentage of its budget is now being diverted to non-science activities.
The NSF primarily supports non-medical fields of science and engineering, making it a crucial source of funding in areas such as mathematics, computer science, and a wide range of physical sciences and laboratories that support new technologies. That $2 billion could have funded the research conducted by undergraduate and graduate students, as well as help purchase supplies and equipment that are essential to do the work necessary to make discoveries and innovate.
Rather than spending the money on projects related to real science, here are some examples of what Team Biden diverted it to:
- Examining “sex/gender narratives” in undergraduate biology ($569,851)
- Identifying “systemic racism” in mathematics teacher education ($644,642)
- Transforming engineering classrooms towards “racial equity” ($323,684)
The NSF is managed by a director and deputy director, both appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. Hopefully, President/President-Elect Trump will find directors and support staff to promote real science and meaningful research.
I had an opportunity to talk to two members of the Ace of Spades HQ, JJ Sefton and CBD, about this issue and a number of other challenges that science in this nation faces. I am grateful to promote good science and the scientists who do it…despite the disgraceful and shameful funding priorities that researchers have to contend with.
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Comments
The Large Hadron Collider: the black experience.
What’s that saying that anything not avowedly conservative eventually devolves into leftist rot? The original is far more poetic.
I’m at the point now that I believe we should both disallow government foundations like this and to do away with the perks enjoyed by non-profit organizations. Both have become acid in the face of our republic.
Want to engage in philanthropy? Awesome. Good for you. Just do it without the jackboot of government on my throat.
Leftism is only concerned with the ownership of the jackboot of government on the throat. That is all.
DEI is only concerned with the jackpot you get or don’t get depending on what color of skin you were born with.
2 billion of OUR taxpayers money
And we have no say so
Don’t we go to war over this?
Congress must have appropriated the funds at some point. Of course, the administrative state takes the money and runs.
What was the ROI on the $2 billion?
“NSF provides approximately 25% of all federally supported basic research conducted at U.S. colleges and universities, with an annual budget of about $9.9 billion for fiscal year 2023.”
“You’ve never worked for the private sector. I have. THEY expect results.”
This juxtaposition w/ a quote from the original Ghost Busters is an illustration of the maxim, ‘The purpose of a system is what it DOES.’ This is a system designed for waste, fraud, abuse.
DEFUND the UNIVERSITIES.
One of my favorite movie lines ever.
“The NSF was intended to promote and support ground-breaking research and development that would help this nation (and perhaps all mankind as well). It was not intended to be a social welfare agency.”
Any power you give government that CAN be abused WILL be abused.
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