Scientists need to stop reflexively calling what Trump is doing is “an attack on science.” It includes that, yes, but it isn’t limited to it — not even close. Widespread detentions of immigrants? Not science. Corrupt, incompetent appointments across the federal government? Not science. Book-burnings and library purges? Not science. Reactionary anti-DEI curricular diktats? Not science. Across-the-board cuts in federal funding? Not science. “Deconstructing the administrative state”? Not science. Exploiting “antisemitism”? Not science. Singling out Columbia for an increasingly ‘all-of-government’ assault? Not science. Issuing a watchlist to threaten sixty universities by name? Not science. Extrajudicial arrests? Not science. Corrupt exemptions for NYU, where Barron attends? Not science. These aren’t attacks on science, they’re attacks on the secular, democratic, civil, progressive, meritocratic, knowledge-based ideals and institutions that made science possible.
Why does this matter? Fighting Trump’s attacks requires the broadest coalitions possible.
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It doesn’t even build alliances within “the sciences”: Does the withdrawal of NIH funding mobilize physicists or astronomers? No. Electrical and mechanical engineers? No. Geologists? No. Maybe a few oceanographers and climate scientists, but they have their own fish to fry. If this framing as an “attack on science” can’t even mobilize its own named constituents, that’s a problem.
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It doesn’t build alliances across faculties. Scientists’ second natural allies are the faculties across the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Framing this as “an attack on science” sidelines them from the start — with no gain. *If this framing as an “attack on science” can’t even mobilize its structural allies, that’s another problem.
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It doesn’t mobilize non-faculty university staff. The vast majority of people who work in higher ed are not faculty — they’re office administrators, support staff, facilities workers, security officers, and more. (And, snicker as you like, but security workers are often the first ‘ambassadors’ people encounter, and in that role can be fiercely loyal to a school.) Many of these people are union members, which grants them a measure of both power and protection within an institution and networks across the sector. *If this framing as an “attack on science” can’t inspire obvious structural alliance, that’s yet another problem.
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It does the same to most students, to most , to campus neighbors (who have a very concrete stake in the health of universities), and the entire ecosystem of vendors, local and national, that depend on higher ed. *If this framing as an “attack on science” can’t activate people who are directly affected, that’s still one more problem.
So far, the “attack on science” framing seems to be pretty much all downsides.
There’s another, less obvious but crucial aspect. Sizable segments of the US population don’t much care for science but care a lot about college sports. For scientists to recruit that stadium-oriented side of universities would be a tough sell, to be sure, but not as tough as watching the world-historical force of post-WW2 US science research get burned to the ground by fools, tools, and trolls.
Most of these sports are dominated by big state schools, which are the ones with the internal capacity and external support needed to sustain serious research. If they’re rescinding admission (like U Mass’s Chan Medical School), engaging in mass layoff (like Johns Hopkins), or imposing hiring and other freezes (like Harvard), then its fair to ask why should sports be exempt from the pain. We know the “answer,” of course, but there should be much more discussion and debate about this. And schools can and should use it as a political weapon: “Cut our funding and we’ll cut your fun.” Framing Trump’s assault as an “attack on science” squanders what little opportunity there is, if only for leverage within each institution.
tl;dr: The “attack on science” framing is factually wrong and a major strategic misstep.