Stop the Attack on US Science: Comment to the OMB about proposed rule OMB-2026–0034

The US government is attempting to modify how it allocates federal research dollars through a new proposed rule: “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance” . These changes would devastate US science for all the reasons I outline below, turning scientific inquiry into a short-term tool for partisan advancement. Anyone can leave a comment about this rule and comments are open until July 13th. If you are looking for guidance on how to write your comment you can consult former NIH program official Elizabeth Ginexi’s helpful guidance.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am an Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning at MIT. I have written two award-winning books and undertaken award-winning research partially funded through federal grants from the National Science Foundation that relate to human computer interaction, civic engagement, and citizen data science:

1815228 CHS: Small: Collaborative Research: Catalyzing Youth Civic Engagement Through Innovations in Social Computing

2213826 HCC: Small: Human-Centered Computing to Support Citizen Data Science on Gender-based Violence

2426908 SCC-IRG Track 1: Amplifying Neighborhood Connectivity and Strength through Youth-Driven Civic Innovation

These grants have been transformational for my own career (I achieved tenure during #2213826, partially due to the award-winning research I was able to undertake with NSF funding) and for the careers of those who I mentored who went on to tenure-track jobs at Smith College, University of Michigan, Queen Mary University London, and other institutions. These funds created a space for undertaking rigorous scholarship about AI, technology, democracy, and civic participation, particularly related to women, marginalized groups, and place-based communities. I have detailed all of the incredible findings and accomplishments of our research team on Award #2213826 which recently ended: https://medium.com/data-feminism-lab-mit/wrapping-up-four-years-of-work-on-gender-violence-and-citizen-data-science-our-nsf-project-540054ccc07d

It is because of having the privilege of receiving federal research funds that I understand the scope and scale of what will be lost if the proposed rule OMB-2026–0034 is implemented by the OMB. Here are some of the most troubling components of the proposed rule:

§200.205 — Political appointee review of grants — Replacing peer review with approval by political appointees is a surefire way to produce truly terrible science. While peer review as a system certainly has room for improvement, making funding subject to ideological loyalty tests and short-term policy goals is not the way to improve it. Much of our most important science has long-term goals and doesn’t easily lend itself to partisan policy priorities. If we take the current administration as a barometer of just how politicized this might become we can easily see that much good science would not be funded or undertaken because it would use “banned” or supposedly “woke” words like “women”, “history”, and “communities”. My own award-winning work would not be funded under such exclusionary and ideological barriers to academic freedom. Such dictates are more reminiscent of a totalitarian regime than a government which believes in long-term, independent scientific inquiry.

§200.340 — Grant termination — Allowing for the termination of grants at the whim of federal agencies is also a way to produce an extremely uncertain climate for scientific work, undermine our ability to recruit and retain top talent, and create chilling and silencing effects throughout the entire scientific enterprise. What happens when a climate scientist’s findings contradict the evidentiary basis of federal energy policy? Their grant will be terminated. It only has to happen once or twice to spread fear through the industry and chill all scientists’ ability to speak freely and objectively about their research. And if grants can be terminated capriciously, at the ideological whim of political appointees, the jobs created by these research funds are far, far less attractive. Smart young scientists will take their labor elsewhere to other countries, and rightly so, where they can enjoy academic freedom and the security of knowing that their position will exist for as long as stated. This is already happening due to the current behavior of the federal government. Numerous colleagues in computer science have been recruited to European, Canadian and Asian universities. Our most talented PhD recruits are taking offers in other countries than the US if they get them because the US is now seen as an uncertain place for academic freedom and for the physical safety of students who work on topics disfavored by the government (like “women”). One Assistant Professor at a top institution for computer science told me that his colleagues told him he must pivot his focus away from marginalized groups in order to achieve tenure in the current climate. Instead, he left for an high-paid, attractive job in Europe where the institution embraces his focus on AI and society. A historic brain drain is already underway and this section would institutionalize that for US science.

§200.432 — Conference attendance pre-approval — Conferences are the lifeblood of scientific collaboration, debate and exchange. While some conferences may be annual, others arise in the course of undertaking research and depend on where the research leads. For example, during our recent NSF Award, we got an unexpected offer to present our work at a conference on housing data science at Maynooth University. Federal funds helped three mentees attend, along with myself as PI. They practiced presenting preliminary findings, and built their international scientific networks. It resulted in the inclusion of our work in a book compiled by the organizers, a significant outcome for early-stage PhD students. Such a conference would not have been permissible under a paternalistic and infantilizing regime in which we would have needed to declare all conferences we would attend within the terms and conditions of the award (potentially years in advance of when we would be attending them). One recommendation for producing good national science is to simply trust that your scientists know which conferences are worth attending. We do not need an army of bureaucrats pre-approving conference registrations (nor, for that matter, an army of AI bots scanning for “banned” keywords in conference descriptions).

§200.300 — DEI and gender ideology prohibitions — This proposed change is a direct threat to scientific inquiry, academic freedom, and to the ability of science to serve *all*** members of the public. The “DEI” restriction would prohibit all study, for example, of racialized or gendered subpopulations. For example: investigating diabetes in the Native American population or running experiments for which kinds of programs work best to recruit and retain women in STEM. I wonder if a study of endometriosis would go unfunded because it might only enroll women, for example? The “gender ideology” restriction is based on an unscientific, highly discriminatory executive order (Executive Order 14168) that is clearly weaponizing politics to systematically deny rights, health care, and the whole existence of the trans population in the United States. Not since Jim Crow in the US South have we waged such a systematic campaign to deny rights to a subpopulation of our citizens (see https://www.thedissident.news/the-ratchet/). As Alejandra Caraballo writes, “every trans suicide is a murder,” and this proposed section is participating in that violence. This section is an attempt to institutionalize the exclusion of trans people, people of color and women from the scientific enterprise and to ban the scientific investigation of inequality.

§200.218 — Disparate-impact research banned — The rationale for including this proposed section is contradictory and flawed. The claim is that the federal government wishes to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex or other characteristics and yet this section would ban scientific inquiry into whether or not such discrimination exists, what are its mechanisms, and how we might rectify it. Researching racism does not create racism. Investigating sexism is not sexist. There is a strange toddler theory at work which imagines that if we simply do not study something then it doesn’t exist. Like §200.300, this is a nakedly partisan attempt to constrain academic freedom and scientific inquiry on topics that the current federal government dislikes.

§200.220 — Foreign collaboration prohibition — Scientific collaboration is essential for vibrant knowledge exchange and discovery. This section would restrict scientists from joining forces on shared discoveries which have benefit for all people around the globe, not just for one nation or another nation, for example, on cancer research, retrofitting buildings for efficient energy use, or comparative social science. This restriction would significantly weaken US science and we would see the US sidelined as global scientific teams make monumental discoveries elsewhere without our involvement.

§200.461 — Publication costs (now unallowable) — Scholars and scientists publish our work in journals which have “open access fees”, meaning you pay a certain sum of money to the publisher in order to make your knowledge open and free to access. This section would make such fees unallowable which means that members of the public would not be able to access the knowledge generated by federal research dollars. This might include everyday people searching for knowledge about their health, neighborhood organizations helping their communities, nonprofit health clinics following the latest research, etc. All of these groups and more would be blocked from knowing the most recent scientific discoveries. Academic knowledge would return to being locked up in journals that have subscription fees in the thousands. This feels not only contradictory to the mission of the federal government but also profoundly elitist.

For all of these reasons, I strongly urge OMB not to finalize this rule. It will devastate US science, destroy the scientific talent pipeline in the country, and lead to further national decline and embarrassment.

Catherine D’Ignazio Associate Professor of Urban Science & Planning Director, Data + Feminism Lab Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA, USA

*No AI was used in the writing of this comment. Just my imperfect human brain.