PSC, Higher-Ed Unions Slam Federal Research Funding Cuts
Researchers at the city and state’s public universities affected by cuts to federal grant funding urged the state’s congressional leaders to oppose further cuts to funding proposed in President Trump’s “big beautiful bill.”
Members of the Professional Staff Congress, the New York State United Teachers and other higher-education advocates rallied against the existing and proposed funding reductions outside of the Trump Building at 40 Wall St. Monday.
At the City University of New York, 70 grants worth $17 million in funding have been slashed, which has put 100 jobs at risk, according to the PSC. And at SUNY, there have been $50 million in grant terminations.
The PSC’s president, James Davis, called the cuts to SUNY and CUNY “an outrage,” adding that cuts to research could delay life-saving medical treatments.
“But also, let’s be very clear, this is only a fraction of the thousands of grants nationwide that have been defunded and that are on the chopping block. Why? Because they involve issues that this administration has decided to try to suppress. Issues such as climate science, gender, vaccine science, diversity and inclusion, and many, many other areas of research whose suppression is ideologically motivated, motivated by politics and not by sound policy,” he said.
In addition to the grants already defunded, the Trump administration has proposed setting a 15-percent cap on indirect cost reimbursements, leaving a gap many public colleges and universities would be unable to cover, the advocates said.
Jessica Levy, an assistant professor of history at SUNY Purchase, was the recipient of a $6,000 National Endowment for the Humanities stipend. But Levy was informed April 3 that the stipend, which is awarded to individual researchers, was being terminated. Levy’s grant was awarded to support her research on the history of the U.S. automobile industry and globalization.
She noted that the stipend “is really important, especially for faculty in the humanities — there are not a lot of large grants — so to have two months set aside in the summer to conduct continuous research is a huge honor and prestigious award.”
She added that the majority of NEH summer-stipend recipients also had their grants terminated, and that several lawsuits have been filed over the cuts, including by The Authors Guild. She added that the manner by which she was informed of the grant termination was extremely unprofessional, Levy explained.
“This email was sent via a nongovernmental Microsoft account created for this purpose, just one example of the cruel carelessness and disregard this administration has shown with these cuts,” she said. “When the Trump administration terminated my and other NEH awards, they violated the terms of the summer stipend, which according to the agency’s own terms, once awarded can only be terminated by the grantee.”
‘A public good'
Kathleen Cumiskey, a psychology professor at the College of Staten Island who has worked at CUNY for 22 years, said that a $700,000 National Science Foundation grant for a three-year STEM education program aimed at improving academic outcomes at Hispanic-serving institutions was terminated on May 2, just 20 months into the program’s lifespan.
The initiative had improved students’ GPAs, increased retention rates and fostered an 83-percent pass rate. “We believe the decision to terminate our grant was unfair. Unfortunately, under the current administration, it appears that the agency has been redirected in ways that threaten our nation’s scientific discovery and the importance of broad participation in the creation of new knowledge,” Cumiskey said.
She called on higher-education and research advocates to champion inclusive educational practices. “We need to ensure that discoveries are made to benefit society that are not influenced or controlled by the special interests of those with political and financial power. Science is a public good, and we must defend it,” Cumiskey said.
Monica Trujillo, a biology professor at Queensborough Community College, spearheaded a wastewater surveillance project during the Covid pandemic for early detection of infectious diseases. Two years ago, Queensborough, LaGuardia Community College and Queens College received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a training program that allowed community college students studying wastewater epidemiology to apply for jobs in the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. That five-year grant was terminated on May 2.
“The real truth is they don’t want us to train economically disadvantaged students — minorities — to be able to apply to well-paying jobs,” Trujillo said. “We want our grants restored. Most of all, we don’t want the budget cuts that this horrible bill is going to bring.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander joined the researchers, noting that higher education contributes $35 billion to the city’s economy and employs about 140,000 people.
“Anyone who votes for that so-called ‘Big Beautiful Budget Bill,’ you are responsible for people dying, for people getting sicker, for people losing jobs, right in your neighborhood,” he said.
Davis, the PSC president, urged congressional leaders whose districts include CUNY and SUNY institutions — including Representatives Nicole Malliotakis, who represents Staten Island and Mike Lawler of Hudson Valley — to protect research funding, and to reject Trump’s bill.
“As we go into Independence Day, Congress has the opportunity to do something patriotic … which is to stand up and to vote against this big, ugly betrayal of a budget bill that would deprive hundreds of thousands of people across New York State of Medicaid, that would close hospitals, that would reduce SNAP and food assistance, and that would impose punitive cuts on federal aid to SUNY and CUNY students and the Pell program that allows students to thrive,” the union leader said.