COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — An Ohio State University researcher is left without funding after DOGE canceled it over what she said is a misinterpreted word.
In November 2022, OSU Engineering Education Research Assistant Professor Julie Aldridge was awarded $713,155 in funding from the National Science Foundation to be paid over four years. Less than three years later, her grant was canceled because it was titled “The Organizational Climate Challenge: Promoting the retention of students from underrepresented groups in doctoral engineering programs.”
Aldridge said she was out of state at an academic conference when the Sponsored Project Office at OSU received word of the cancelation on April 25. The office received an emailed list of terminated awards, leaving a colleague from the Sponsored Project Office to break the news to Aldridge.
“Can you imagine having to do that — and on a Friday afternoon? That’s another thing, these actions tend to take place late on Fridays,” Aldridge said.
Aldridge said she and her colleagues knew it might be coming. Her project had been included under the environmental justice category in Ted Cruz’s list of “promoting neo-Marxist propaganda.” Aldridge said it was flagged because her award included the term “climate,” used in this case to describe the environment of an organization.
“We learned that keyword searches are being used to identify awards for termination and ‘climate’ is a trigger word,” Aldridge said. “The searches are automated, which means the keyword’s context is lost.”
At the time she was awarded the grant, Aldridge told OSU’s College of Engineering communications team that the NSF asked her to expand the project’s scope to also focus on LGBTQ+ retention in doctoral engineering programs. She said the research had looked into an NSF priority area, expanding STEM participation, which was set by Congress.
The grant still had $423,599.71 unpaid. In the first two years of research, Aldridge and co-researchers from UNC, the University of Cincinnati and the American Society for Engineering Education used data to develop a survey to best gage why retention rates are low. In the third and fourth years, which Aldridge was currently working on, the survey was supposed to be distributed to current doctoral engineering students. Now, Aldridge is left without funding or the data she’d hoped to collect.
“Awards that are not aligned with NSF’s priorities have been terminated, including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation/disinformation,” The NSF said.
According to the NSF, any awards terminated because they “no longer (effectuate) the program goals or agency priorities” are final decisions and cannot be appealed. Under new guidelines, researchers are not allowed to focus on broadening STEM opportunities for protected identities.
Aldridge said after the grant cancelation, it’s difficult to know where to go next. She said earning a federal grant for research is a very competitive process, and cuts have disproportionately affected social science and education research, making her field even more difficult to win funding.
“Before the DOGE takeover, my plan was to follow up my current research with a new study focusing on engineering doctoral students with a disability,” Aldridge said. “That’s off the table because ‘disability’ is another trigger word.”
Aldridge had another National Science Foundation grant proposal recommended for funding, but she said the status is now pending. She said DOGE is trying to eliminate the National Science Foundation division that would fund the award. Aldridge said a court order stopped its elimination, but the program does not seem to be actively approving or working through any pending or new awards.
The National Science Foundation termination is not appealable, but Aldridge said she is still appealing it “based on procedural grounds.” She warned that more research cuts come every week, and implored people to be aware about the effects on American science and research aws it becomes “endangered.”
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