The following is very important news about the Trump White House’s unfolding war against biomedical/disease-cure research in the United States. But the set up is a bit complicated. So I want to note both the complexity and the importance in advance, because I want to really encourage you to read the set up and the details. It’s important stuff and most of it remains unknown to the public, though a few threads of the story have been published.
Back in late March and early April, the Trump administration announced grant freezes against a series of elite private universities, all notionally tied to charges of lax vigilance against antisemitism. The targeted universities eventually included Brown, Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern. Harvard eventually sued the administration. Princeton has decided to fight the cuts but hasn’t sued. But most of the universities have generally kept quiet about what they’re doing. And in most cases what that means is that they’re negotiating with the administration and trying to keep their faculties quiet to avoid antagonizing anyone during those notional negotiations.