The federal government has cancelled multiple grants for programs and projects at San José State with little to no explanation.
On March 27, Cleber Ouverney, the director for U-RISE at SJSU, received an email from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at the end of March stating that the $1.5 million in funding to financially support his program for five years was terminated.
“It's just terminating a program that diversifies science and we understand that it's from the contribution of different people who see the approach to biomedical research in different ways that can help us all to better understand the health, human health problems that we face,” Ouverney said.
The U-RISE Program helps support students who come from underrepresented backgrounds to achieve their master's or doctoral degrees in biomedical science, according to a report from the National Institutes of Health.
The National Institutes of Health is the nation’s medical research agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to its webpage. The agency financially supports research in science and medicine.
Ouverney said eight students are enrolled in the program each year.
Each student receives $1,100 for one year, can have 60% of their tuition cost covered for two academic years and receive graduate survival skills training, according to a webpage from SJSU.
“These are students who also would not be able to join (the) research lab at San José State because they have to work too many hours and that would kind of make it difficult for them to, in addition to working (and going to) classes (to) participate in research on campus,” Ouverney said.
The U-RISE program, or what used to be known as the SJSU MARC U*STAR program, ran successfully for 33 years until its funding was terminated, according to the same webpage from SJSU. Ouverney was given three days to close the program.
Rachael French, the department chair of biology, has had multiple faculty members notify her that their grants have not been renewed since the beginning of the year.
“It’s unprecedented,” French said. “I've never seen anything like this. I've literally never seen a grant cancelled in the middle of a grant term.”
She has been working in academia and research labs since 1995, according to her SJSU biography.
French was not able to confirm how many programs will have to be cut or how many grants within SJSU’s biology department have been paused, but said that the department received word from other directors that U-RISE programs across the U.S. have also been canceled.
“It's a large amount of money, and it affects a lot of people and the way that the whole process was also done was probably not the best way,” Ouverney said. “The opportunities that are closing are going to be difficult to replace in many different ways.”
French said these programs provide resources to students that would typically not be well represented in science, including women, students from the LGBTQ+ community and students from diverse cultural or ethnic backgrounds.
“Generally speaking, it is anyone who has traditionally lacked equal access to these opportunities in science,” French said. “(It’s) the attempt to bring more of those folks into science, to give them opportunities that they might have previously been excluded from.”
Marc d’Alarcao, the interim vice president for research and innovation at SJSU, announced on April 21 at the university’s budget town hall meeting that 12 grants of around $2.2 million in funds have been canceled from multiple federal sponsoring agencies.
“We're being asked by some agencies to certify that our awarded grants don't run afoul of presidential executive orders,” d’Alarcao said. “We follow all laws, of course, but the challenge is that the interpretation of those laws is changing at the federal level.”
Some of the federal agencies that have paused funding for grants include the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. Department of Energy and more, according to a presentation at SJSU’s Budget Town Hall on April 21.
The two agencies asking for certification are the National Institutes of Health and AmeriCorps, according to the same presentation.
Matthew Spangler, the chair for the film, theater and dance department, also received an email informing him that his grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities be terminated. His $171,000 grant was supposed to fund his institute, “The Immigrant Experience in California Through Literature and History.”
“I don't have another way of gaining that amount of money,” Spangler said. “We won't be proceeding with the program, and we probably won't do it ever again, at least under this administration.”
The program examines how the experience of transnational immigration to California has been represented through history and literature, according to its webpage.
Spangler has already chosen the 25 applicants to be a part of the program and to receive the opportunity to travel around the U.S. to learn more about the history of immigration.
“As for the 25 … we circled back to communicate again and told them that the institute had been terminated by (the Department of Government Efficiency).”
The National Endowment for the Humanities will not continue to fund the program, “due to (Department of Government Efficiency’s) termination of the grant award,” according to an email sent to Spangler from the agency.
Spangler has already spent around $10,000 of the program funds and has agreed to around $30,000 in commitments, and contracts for hotel and travel costs and other expenses.
He said losing this grant money means he will not receive any reimbursements from the government for expenses related to his institute.
Before funding for the institute was terminated, K-12 teachers, librarians, and administrators could apply for Spangler’s program, according to a summary from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The primary audience was middle and high school teachers of literature, social studies, history, foreign languages and theatre.
Summer participants in the program would have received $2,200 for their work before the funding was terminated, according to the institute’s website.
“I think it's a shame,” Spangler said. “It seems to me it's a real valuable thing to do with federal tax dollars to support our K-12 teachers and to give them these educational opportunities in the summer.”
At the town hall, d’Alarcao said the CSU Office of General Counsel and the California Attorney General’s office have managed to gain a temporary restraining order to temporarily prevent funding reductions from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Energy.
In February, 22 attorney generals, including Rob Bonta, the attorney general for California, filed a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump’s administration and the National Institutes of Health for unlawfully cutting funds from UC and CSU universities involved in medical and public health research, according to a webpage from the California attorney general’s office.
On April 5, federal judge Angel Kelley ruled permanently that Donald J. Trump’s administration is not allowed to limit the National Institutes of Health from providing grants to universities around the U.S., according to a memorandum and Kelley’s injunction.
French also said the university has managed to compensate enough money to continue paying the students in the U-RISE program.
“The kinds of grants that have been terminated have been expressly the ones designed to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in science,” French said. “The use of those words isn't expressly the reason given (but) it's pretty clear to me, based on the types of grants that are being canceled, why they're being canceled.”
