TECH Signal 481
Court documents reveal federal agencies used keyword lists to cancel research grants
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Court documents from a University of California lawsuit revealed that NIH, NSF, the Defense Department, and NEH used keyword searches rather than individual review to identify and terminate research grants related to DEI, climate change, and other topics opposed by the Trump administration.
The keyword-based approach bypassed individual grant assessment, terminating funding for projects that used common academic terms like "minority," "institutional," and "traumatic" regardless of the research's specific focus. Researchers working on topics touching diversity, climate, or social justice face funding risk based on terminology rather than project merit.
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Four federal agencies confirmed they used keyword searches to identify grants for termination rather than assessing each grant individually.
NSF pulled its keyword list directly from a 2024 Ted Cruz report, using hundreds of terms including "injustice," "ally," "prejudice," "institutional," and "traumatic."
The Defense Department targeted climate and energy terms including "solar," "wind," "geothermal," "carbon neutrality," "decarbonization," and "federal sustainability."
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