April 30 – The US National Institutes of Health implemented a new policy stating they will bar colleges and universities from receiving funding if they boycott business relations with Israel. Announced Monday, this new policy added the terms and conditions for schools that receive funding from the NIH, which awards billions of dollars in research funding, nearly 50,000 grants per year. It also bars eligible schools from operating any DEI or accessibility programs if they want to receive funds from Donald Trump’s administration. NIH’s new rules require recipients of NIH funds to certify that they do not have any “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” programs that violate federal anti-discrimination laws, and that they do not participate in boycotts of Israeli companies or firms doing business in Israel. The rules then goes on saying that “if a grantee is found to be violating these terms, the NIH can terminate the award and claw back funding that was disbursed.”
“NIH reserves the right to terminate financial assistance awards and recover all funds if recipients, during the term of this award, operate any program in violation of Federal anti-discriminatory laws or engage in a prohibited boycott.” stated an NIH official.
A US Department of Health and Human Services official stated on Monday that the agency is terminating research funding that doesn’t align with NIH or HHS priorities. The Trump administration froze about $2.2 billion of federal grants and contracts at Harvard University last week and canceled $400 million in grants and contracts for Columbia University.
Harvard University, one of the schools that receives medical research funding from the NIH, stated that they received $488 million in NIH funding, accounting for the majority of its total $866 million in federal research funding. According to the Harvard Crimson, Harvard Medical School received, alone, more than $171 million in NIH grants, and they will be hit the hardest, according to a student.
“We cannot stand by and watch a partnership that the federal government and our research institutions maintained together for decades be incomprehensibly and illegally torn apart in weeks.” stated Peter McDonough, vice president of ACE.
Pro-Palenstinian student groups have long advocated boycotts of Israel, including at many colleges and universities, but those efforts have not found success. Administrations have almost universally buffed them or voted them down.
