Federal Science Grants Still Funding Discriminatory Intersectionality – EPP Report and Call To Action

Federal Science Grants Still Funding Discriminatory Intersectionality – EPP Report and Call To Action

The Legal Insurrection Foundation and its Equal Protection Project have led the way in taking on “Intersectionality,” particularly federal funding of this ideology, which has captured the campuses and is the foundation for anti-Americanism, anti-Capitalism, and antisemitism.

Our effort started in late fall 2025. You may recall my NY Post op-ed, Toxic fuel for far-left terrorists came straight from our colleges, and our March 2026 presentation to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

In April 2026, LIF and the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI) released a major research and policy report, Intersectionality – The Rise of a Dangerous Anti-American Ideology, and How to Stop It. In that report, we called, among other things, for Intersectionality to be included under the definition of DEI for the purpose of Executive Orders barring federal grants incorporating discriminatory DEI criteria.

In July 2026, we submitted a comment to OMB calling on it to include a bar on funding of Intersectionality in a federal grant rulemaking proposal, LIF to OMB: Strengthen Federal Grantmaking Nondiscrimination by Barring Funding of Intersectionality.

In August 2026, LIF and DFI released a follow-up report focusing on the federal funding problem, Federal Spending on Intersectionality – The Case for Executive Action to End Identity-Based Preferences in Federal Grantmaking:

…. This report identifies nearly 250 federal award records on USAspending.gov using the keyword “intersectionality,” with approximately $230 million in reported obligations and $140 million in reported outlays, subject to ordinary USAspending.gov updates and reconciliation. The awards show that intersectionality has moved from academic theory into taxpayer-funded programs, including research, training, outreach, equity measurement, technical assistance, institutional-change projects, and program design.

LIF and DFI  have just released a follow up report showing that the problem has grown in just the past few months, Federal Spending on Intersectionality Continues:

Executive Summary

Despite the Trump Administration’s decisive and consequential actions to remove unlawful discrimination from federal grantmaking and policy, restore merit and equal treatment under law, and halt taxpayer funding for programs that conflict with statutory purpose, ongoing analysis of federal spending on projects furthering discriminatory intersectionality ideology indicates that more work remains.

In prior reports, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) of the Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF) and the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies (DFI) have provided evidence and analysis demonstrating the need for additional action to address the discriminatory use of intersectionality ideology to evade the Administration’s nondiscrimination efforts.

This update confirms that federal funding of intersectionality continues—and that urgent action is still required.

Descriptions of recent and active awards do not merely mention intersectionality in passing. They show that awardees use it to shape research design, policy analysis, intervention development, demographic measurement, workforce training, and programs for selected identity groups. The selected awards began between 2023 and 2026 and extend through 2028, 2029, 2030, or 2031. Their implementation, monitoring, payments, renewals, or closeout may therefore still be underway.

A snapshot as of September 24, 2026, of a USAspending search for awards containing the keyword “intersectionality” reveals $257,019,995.74 in obligations and $156,344,735.17 in outlays—up from the approximately $230 million obligated and $140 million outlaid identified in the August report.1

The most compelling evidence is qualitative and forward-looking. Full award descriptions frequently show intersectionality operating as a governing framework, not merely appearing as a stray keyword, and the selected awards include performance dates well into the future. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—principally the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—dominates the selected examples; the National Science Foundation (NSF) also funds significant education and workforce initiatives explicitly described using intersectional terminology. The appendix identifies fourteen entries covering sixteen awards that expressly connect intersectionality to identity categories, marginalization, systems of power or oppression, targeted recruitment, institutional practices, policy analysis, or discrimination.

Building on the Administration’s substantial progress, this report recommends a focused executive order extending to federal grantmaking the nondiscrimination principles reflected in Executive Order 14151, Executive Order 14398, and related directives. The order would direct agencies, within sixty days, to update their policies and guidance and then review active and pending awards, while preserving lawful research and legitimate programs administered under neutral criteria. The regulatory language proposed in LIF’s and DFI’s public comment to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would provide a complementary clarification.

The Report contains an Appendix with a sample of 14 currently operating grants including at least four approved during the current Trump administration.

The Report concludes:

The updated evidence in this report shows that federal spending on intersectionality is not merely historical. Selected awards made since 2023 expressly incorporate “complex, cumulative Federal Spending on Intersectionality Continues 5 intersectionality,” “political intersectionality,” “intersectional stigma,” “interlocking systems of oppression,” and the “intersectionality” of selected identities. Several remain active through 2028, 2029, 2030, or 2031, and some report little or no outlay to date.

This evidence presents a practical opportunity for the Trump Administration to strengthen its record of civil rights enforcement by closing a remaining loophole. A supplemental executive order addressing “intersectionality,” followed by agency guidance and award-specific review, would prevent identity-based preferences from persisting under intersectional terminology while preserving lawful research and legitimate need-based programs. The OMB clarification already proposed by LIF and DFI would reinforce that effort, but presidential direction is essential to removing this dangerous, discriminatory ideology from federal grantmaking.

The Daily Wire covered the report:

Despite the Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI, federal funding for some grievance-focused research continues through a loophole two watchdog groups want closed.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has continued funding for research centering on intersectionality, a key plank of Critical Race Theory, with new approvals in 2025 and 2026 for projects focusing on Chinese prostitutes and xenophobia’s impact on the mental health of nurses. Funding for these projects appears to be flying under the radar because they use the parameters of “intersectionality” and not the widely scrutinized diversity, equity, and inclusion criteria.

The funding was flagged in a report first shared with The Daily Wire by the Legal Insurrection Foundation and the Defense of Freedom Institute.

“What we’re finding is that under the rubric of intersectionality, discriminatory federal funding continues despite the administration’s best efforts to rid grant programs of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Legal Insurrection Foundation President William Jacobson told The Daily Wire. “Intersectionality, which is the core of critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion, both historically and ideologically, is a loophole that needs to be closed.”

As of September 2026, watchdogs flagged up to $257,019,995 in federal spending obligations and $156,344,735 in outlays for intersectionality-related research. Intersectionality involves measuring so-called oppression by looking at the various racial or sexual group identities.

An executive order signed by President Donald Trump on the first day of his second term targeted “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”

Jacobson believes that this order and related ones should be tweaked to make clear the policies extend to the ideology of intersectionality. He described intersectionality as “essentially a hierarchy of victimhood, and a higher … way of looking at the world that focuses on your group identity, not who you are as an individual.”

Defense of Freedom Institute President Bob Eitel told The Daily Wire that the funding ties “show that intersectional ideology continues to permeate the federal grantmaking apparatus despite the administration’s significant progress in combating unlawful DEI.”

“Taxpayers should not bankroll an ideological framework that divides Americans into categories of privilege and oppression, and federal agencies must ensure that otherwise legitimate research and public programs do not become vehicles for unlawful identity-based preferences,” Eitel added.

Programs approved in recent months include a project for $3.27 million approved in June 2026 for Johns Hopkins University to study the impacts of “racism, sexism, and xenophobia” on the mental health of female nurses….

Another project, funded at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) for over $251,000, aims to recruit “historically minoritized students” from Monterey Peninsula College into biomedical research and education programs at UCSC.

The project, slated to run from August 2026 to July 2031, will involve programs offered by the UCSC STEM Diversity office to “leverage a strong, established community of minoritized scholars with a focus and celebration of the intersectionality of their identities.” ….

A third project flagged in the report was from NYU Grossman School of Medicine to reduce stigma for Chinese immigrant prostitutes. This project focused on “addressing intersectional stigma, focusing on Chinese immigrant female sex workers (FSWs) in New York City (NYC).” …

Jacobson said that the report put no “blame on the administration” for the funding, but suspected that the intersectional framework was evading scrutiny because of the focus on more explicit DEI.

“This evidence presents a practical opportunity for the Trump administration to strengthen its record of civil rights enforcement by closing a remaining loophole,” the report found. “A supplemental executive order addressing ‘intersectionality,’ followed by agency guidance and award-specific review, would prevent identity-based preferences from persisting under intersectional terminology while preserving lawful research and legitimate need-based programs.”

We will continue to bring attention to the problem of Intersectionality and to seek reform of the federal grant programs so that unlawful discrimination does not enter through the Intersectionality loophole.

Reminder: we are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.

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