Sen. Ted Cruz released a database identifying 3,400 diversity-related grants from the National Science Foundation worth $2.05 billion on Feb. 11. This included 21 grants worth $7.46 million in grants at UConn awarded during the Biden Administration.
A press release from the NSF stated that listed grants created funding for “questionable projects that promoted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda.”
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A federal judge said that the government could not cancel “equity-related” contracts, according to CNN. This temporarily blocked the cancellation of diversity-related grants.
Some of the flagged UConn grants showed topics which were related to diversity, such as a grant on the reduction of bias in medicine. The grant, worth $392,994, looks at using artificial intelligence to counter biased, harmful and false information that disproportionately impacts minority groups.
Another grant, worth $31,999, was for an inaugural conference in geometric analysis held in 2022. Although the grant ended in 2023 and only $129 was not outlaid, it was included in the spreadsheet. The grant may have been flagged because it included plans to support speakers from underrepresented backgrounds.
A UConn grant worth $356,558 covered stochastic, or random, systems and examined models for randomness and their impact.
A spreadsheet listed that the grant was flagged for social justice-related reasons.
“The research will promote diversity and inclusion, increase public scientific literacy, and enhance interdisciplinary collaborations and the STEM workforce,” the grant description said.
An NSF webpage states that research results may still be published, regardless of executive order outcomes.
These flagged grants consist of obligated funds, some of which have been paid out in part or in full and some of which have not.
University of Maryland public policy professor Philip Joyce explained how obligated funds work.
“When the Congress makes an appropriation and the president approves it, that gives a federal agency the ability to spend that money,” said Joyce. “What an obligation represents is an intent to spend money. […] You basically have said to an entity that ‘this is how much we intend to spend’ but they’re not giving it to you all at once.”
Joyce explained that deobligations can occur when obligated funds are no longer needed. He gave the example of when a project costs less than anticipated. Joyce said that there was the question of what the Trump administration’s legal authorities are for not spending the obligated funds.
“Ultimately, what I see happening is that that bigger question is going to go all the way to the Supreme Court,” said Joyce.
Joyce said that the Trump administration is embracing unitary executive theory, instead of the traditional interpretation that that the president faithfully spends appropriated money.
Joyce thought that different contracts could be treated differently.
“A lot of the specifics could differ from one contract to another,” said Joyce.
The law that sets the appropriation may not be specific that money has to go to UConn, according to Joyce.
“There’s a difference in my mind between shifting the money from UConn to another university and choosing not to spend the money at all,” said Joyce.