Congress is considering several measures that threaten to withhold research funding as an ideological weapon against universities – but it’s their discoveries that advance Americans’ health, security, and prosperity that would be the collateral damage.
As The Economist magazine recently pointed out, China has now surpassed the United States and the European Union in two key metrics that measure high-quality scientific research output: Chinese researchers’ global share of citations in peer-reviewed articles and contributions to papers in the world’s top scientific journals. This is a dramatic change from just 20 years ago, when the United States and the E.U. were far ahead of China on both figures. This news also comes on the heels of the Chinese government announcing a $52 billion investment in research and development for 2024 even as the United States cut total investment in research and development by 2.7% for the current fiscal year.
These trends are troubling enough, but they come at a time when some U.S. lawmakers are threatening to make the situation worse by using arbitrary bans on research funding as a political cudgel to attack unrelated targets. While some lawmakers behind these measures aim to damage universities they don’t like, the real damage will be done to American scientific leadership – and the economic growth, quality of life, and national security that flow from our (unfortunately already threatened) position as the global leader in science and innovation.
For example, Congress is currently considering several legislative proposals that would cut off all federal research funding to certain universities’ labs if, somewhere on their campuses, an act of antisemitic behavior by students or staff occurs. While the proposal states that the cessation of federally funded research will apply to those universities that “fail to take administrative action” against a student or staff, the provision leaves unclear what exactly that means (and thus, what exactly universities need to do to meet the requirement). Another proposal (in the current Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act) would prohibit research contracts or grants to educational institutions that are found to be “in violation” of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There are similar measures that have been proposed in other legislation – and some of them do not specify whether being “in violation” means a federal court ruling, a settlement with the Department of Education, or even an allegation or investigation.
Let’s be clear: I couldn’t agree more with the authors of these provisions that it is absolutely critical to root out antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. Our universities have an obligation to protect the rights of all students -- regardless of their faith, racial identity, or ethnic background -- to ensure that they are free to fully participate in their own education. But the federal government already has appropriate ways to investigate allegations; to force schools to institute policies that improve the campus environment; and, if necessary, to penalize universities for violations of federal civil rights law. In fact, more and more people with civil rights concerns have turned to that very same complaint process for help over the last couple years.
The proposals’ authors might instead want to consider giving a helping hand to those overburdened professionals in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights by increasing their funding so they can hire more investigators to look into allegations of antisemitism. The office was flat-funded by Congress this year, and the House proposes to provide it with no increase again this coming fiscal year.
Regardless, imposing a blanket ban on federally funded research by universities for reasons that are unrelated to the research is an obvious mismatch between the behavior that Congress wants to crack down on and the penalties these measures propose. These would be dangerous precedents to set, because politicizing American lifesaving and cutting-edge research funding as a weapon to effectively attack research universities nationwide would have an unfortunate rebound effect on Americans.
Withholding federal research funding would turn one of the most successful relationships in American history -- the government-university research partnership – into a blunt ideological weapon. Like most misguided weapons, it would create unwanted collateral damage.
Since World War II, there has been widespread, bipartisan support among Americans and their congressional representatives for government investments in university-based scientific research to make the advancements and discoveries in fundamental science that are important for Americans and the nation. The federal government is the largest funding source for university-based research, and this relationship is at the heart of the nation’s research ecosystem. It allows universities to finance the new pathways and discoveries in fundamental research that can later lead to breakthrough ideas – research that private industry cannot or will not fund because the payoff is too remote.
For example, most of the artificial intelligence advancements that private industry has made in the last few years depend on the fundamental science breakthroughs made at universities years ago.
University-based research also has helped safeguard our national security for decades, and the Department of Defense has long relied on America’s leading research universities to discover and develop multiple new technologies – such as GPS and night-vision goggles – that help keep our troops and our country safe.
The federal government doesn’t provide research funding to universities to benefit the universities; the government conducts open competitions to ensure that funding is provided to the most qualified scientists to conduct research in support of national priorities. Withholding funding for reasons unrelated to that research would harm the scientists, engineers, and graduate students America needs to keep our innovative edge.
Turning research funding into a political weapon would do nothing to advance civil rights or end discrimination. It would, however, succeed in punishing the scientists and scholars who are working on the breakthrough cures for cancer and dementia and technological innovations that will make Americans stronger, safer, and more prosperous. Most disastrously, it would be a blow that would knock the wind out of our nation’s cutting-edge research enterprise even as we struggle to keep America in first place in the global race for the scientific breakthroughs that redound to the benefit of all Americans.