The Trump administration’s decision to fire the entire board that oversees the National Science Foundation is another blow to American science that threatens the country’s global leadership, many elite groups and research representatives have warned, as did the board members who were fired.
They added that the move could dismantle the agency, which is the university’s largest research funding agency, and could give the White House more control over NSF.
The White House did not initially tell board members or the public why it scrapped the board, but in an email Monday it did Within Higher Edthe White House pointed to a 2021 Supreme Court decision. The court’s speech in US v. Arthrex “raised constitutional questions about whether those who are not confirmed members of the Senate can exercise the authority that Congress granted to the National Science Board.” The board’s members—25 full-time, with 22 listed online at the time of the shutdown—are appointed by the president, but not confirmed by the Senate.
“We look forward to working with Hill to revise the law and ensure that the NSB is able to carry out its mission as Congress intended,” the email said. The White House did not respond to a follow-up question about whether this meant it would not appoint new NSB members until Congress changes the law.
The Trump administration had already raised the NSF. After its launch, it quickly moved to cancel dozens of NSF and National Institutes of Health grants, including on transgender health care, vaccine hesitancy, misinformation and disparity, equity and inclusion—but also on less politically controversial topics, like cancer research. In August, by executive order, the president directed “senior appointees” to be in charge of awarding, or denying, new government grants.
In February, NSF’s top management official said the agency’s workforce was down 35 percent from the same time last year, and the agency was planning to “condense” grant applications to half, or less, of the normal number of these grant opportunities.
Matt Owens, president of COGR—an organization that goes by its acronym and represents researchers and universities at the federal level—said in an email that “NSF has been without a confirmed director for a year. Its budget has been cut and proposed cuts are on the table again. And now, NSF is being sidelined with unfair firings of NSB members.
“This is not only bad for NSF, it’s bad for American scientific leadership as the US is being challenged by China and other nations,” Owens said.
Keivan Stassun, who has served on the board since 2023, said that the firing allows the Trump administration, through the White House Office of Management and Budget, to exercise “direct control over the country’s main investment in basic scientific and technological research, in fact, by removing a layer of governance.” The board sets NSF policies and approves capital expenditures.
“What’s going to happen is that NSF is going to be a breakthrough in implementing things in the science and technology domain that administrators just want to do,” said Stassun, the Stevenson Professor of Astrophysics at Vanderbilt University. “OMB can actually tell the rest of the office officials … what should be funded, and what shouldn’t be funded, and at what levels, when.”
‘Dismantling the System’
The NSF, which has a budget of nearly $9 billion, now has no board members, a full director and a deputy director. While the White House said in its email that “the agency’s work continues without interruption,” research site Grant Witness says the NSF is lagging far behind in grantmaking compared to previous years.
The agency has been without a director for a year—the White House said in February that Trump would nominate Jim O’Neill to lead it, but the Senate has yet to confirm him. Stassun noted that the director is an automatic board member and—if the Senate confirms O’Neill without Trump appointing new board members—”you can have a kind of one-man takeover of the directorship and the board.”
Stassun also speculated that the board’s withdrawal may be related to Congress’s rejection of Trump’s proposal to cut NSF funding for this fiscal year — after board members advocated for funding. Trump also proposed cutting more than half of the NSF’s budget for the next fiscal year.
“It was clear that we were preparing to give that direction again to Congress, which in the last budget cycle they clearly listened to,” Stassun said. “So, maybe the administration didn’t want us to provide legally mandated advice to Congress.”
Science does not work in four-year cycles. The task of understanding the universe, solving complex problems and building the knowledge base for tomorrow’s technologies requires patient, ongoing investment guided by sound scientific judgment—not political preference.”
-Willie May, former NSF board member and vice president for research and economic development at Morgan State University.
NSF declined to comment on Within Higher Ed. A few other board members said Within Higher Ed they hadn’t seen the boilerplate termination message since Monday, let alone heard the reason for their dismissal.
“This is a real analogy at this point,” said Roger N. Beachy, a board member who was fired and a retired professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis. He said he received the termination email shortly after 4pm on Friday.
“We hope that there is an explanation coming, but nothing has come to us so far,” he said, adding that he hoped that academics would respond. He said he hopes any new board has “the same interest in the rest” of the American research and education business as the fired members.
“It has to be more than quantum, more than AI,” Beachy said, citing some of the Trump administration’s priorities. “There should be biology, engineering science, engineering technology, technology transfer.”
Willie E. May, another board member and vice president for research and economic development at Morgan State University, posted Within Higher Ed a statement saying he thought he had been terminated and other members said he “received a boilerplate email.”
“I’m very disappointed, although I wouldn’t say completely surprised,” May wrote in a statement. “I have watched the systematic dismantling of this government’s science advisory infrastructure with increasing alarm, and the National Science Board is the latest victim.”
Erosion of Independence?
The National Science Board is more than advisory; The NSF website says the board establishes NSF policies and approves major NSF awards, as well as advises Congress and the president. Stassun said it’s “like the board of directors of a big company,” approving everything from budgets to capital expenditures to strategic direction.
Beachy said, “Anytime there’s a really big project that gets funded, we have to approve it.” He said the board has responsibilities under the law, “so one wonders how those will be managed and monitored unless there is a new board.”
Congress’s National Science Foundation Act of 1950 established NSF as an “independent agency” and created a board.
Joanne Padrón Carney, senior government relations officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said the creation of the board reflects the national need for “an independent science and technology advisory council.”
Carney said the termination means that—if there is a board in the future—there would be clear pressure on its members to end their independence. He said he hopes it has been re-established “with a wide range of representatives of science and technology experts, in academia and the private sector, who will focus on advancing science and research.”
Board members must serve for six years, longer than a single president’s term. May, of Morgan State, said in a statement that this was “precisely confirming the continuation, and, to some extent, of suffocating the political atmosphere.”
“Science doesn’t work in four-year cycles,” said May. “The task of understanding our universe, solving complex problems and building the knowledge base for tomorrow’s technologies requires patient, ongoing investment guided by sound scientific judgment—not political preference.”
May added that she thinks recent Supreme Court decisions “have given this administration a broad sense of license to operate in ways that undermine institutional independence throughout the federal government — and we’re seeing the results play out in real time, not just at NSF but at every science advisory body in the United States.” He said he hopes Congress will “execute its responsibilities to review and challenge this dismissal,” adding that “the board’s authority to advise Congress is established by law, and that authority does not disappear because the Board members are removed.”
California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, called the termination “a real Bozo the Clown move.”
“Unfortunately, it’s no surprise that the president who attacked NSF from day one wants to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation,” Lofgren said. “Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who will not oppose him as he gives our leadership in science to our enemies?”
The office of Rep. Brian Babin, the Texas Republican who chairs the committee, had no comment Monday.
Stassun, of Vanderbilt, said he thinks that, “for anyone who has been watching or paying attention to what’s going on” and other parts of the government connected to the research, “it would be surprising if the National Science Board was the only such body that has not been affected.”
The president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, Waded Cruzado, said in a statement that he was “saddened” by the cancellation of these programs. He said the board “plays an important role in informing America’s national science policy and in overseeing and supporting the National Science Foundation.”
“The nation should be grateful for the help of NSB members who have advanced science for their dedication and for our health, safety, prosperity and well-being,” Cruzado said. “As our global competitors like China vie for leadership in science and innovation, prioritizing and investing in corporate science is critical to continuing US innovation dominance.”
In its statement, AAAS called the termination of the board “the latest in a series of wrong decisions that undermine not only the National Science Foundation, but all American science. Regardless of the reasons, this action sets a precedent and suggests that scientific priorities and policies will change according to the political wishes of all administrations.”
“In the absence of clear communication from government leaders, this move, combined with other seemingly arbitrary yet important decisions, reinforces the following message: America is relinquishing its position as a global leader in science, technology and innovation,” AAAS added.
