With hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants on the line, being in compliance with federal directives is “the No. 1 thing we want to do,” said Andy Johns, senior associate vice chancellor for research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
These days, however, no one’s quite sure how to do that.
Under the Trump administration, the conditions for accepting federal funding have become increasingly partisan. The Chronicle first reported in May that at least two notice-of-award letters from the National Institutes of Health, which are legal documents spelling out the terms of grants, mandated compliance with Trump’s executive order recognizing only two sexes, effectively excluding transgender people from U.S. policy.
Now, according to scientists and colleges contacted by The Chronicle, an increasing number of grant letters — from the NIH and other agencies — require compliance with one or more of Trump’s executive orders and with civil-rights laws, which Trump has sought to reinterpret. The notices typically state that colleges that fail to meet the conditions could be liable under the False Claims Act, a federal law barring institutions from “knowingly” submitting inaccurate information to the government.
There’s a bit of a whiplash that all institutions are feeling, not knowing what are the current rules, what’s accurate, what’s not accurate.
Researchers are unsure how the requirements will affect their work, and they say colleges don’t always give them guidance on how to proceed. Administrators are struggling to offer clear direction when the ground keeps shifting underneath.
In one striking example of the ever-changing environment, the NIH announced a policy in April that required grantees to attest that they don’t operate “illegal” diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or support boycotts of Israel when accepting federal funds. But over the past week, the policy was abruptly rescinded, then put back in place, then rescinded again without explanation.
The NIH did not respond to requests for comment. A similar policy governing National Science Foundation grants appears to have remained unchanged.
“There’s a bit of a whiplash that all institutions are feeling, not knowing what are the current rules, what’s accurate, what’s not accurate,” Johns said.
The new grant conditions are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to dramatically scale back the federal government’s financial relationship with higher education. So far, federal agencies have canceled billions of dollars of research grants to colleges, often citing that the work doesn’t align with the administration’s priorities.
Colleges Put Grants on Hold
At least three colleges have responded to the new conditions by temporarily stopping the process for accepting federal grants.
One was Williams College, in Massachusetts, which paused certifying grants on May 30 to “allow for a thorough review amid the rapidly evolving federal enforcement environment,” Amy Lovett, a spokesperson, said in a statement.
“Our review is underway, and we have already made significant progress toward the clarity we need to resume certification,” Lovett said. Williams, a small liberal-arts institution, isn’t as reliant on grant funding as research universities typically are.
The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities took a similar approach. On May 29, the college announced it would delay setting up new awards and funding to existing awards to allow for a review of new requirements that were included in grant certifications from that month.
Andria Waclawski, a Minnesota spokesperson, told The Chronicle that the new conditions referenced Executive Order 14168, the anti-transgender order, as well as Executive Order 14190, which says it aims to end “radical indoctrination” in K-12 schooling.
The Chronicle reported last month that compliance with the anti-transgender order was required in the fine print of at least two NIH grants, one at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and another at a Boston-area teaching hospital. At Michigan, administrators have paused millions in NIH grants over the past two months, citing concerns about the grant conditions and liability, Undark, a science-focused outlet, reported on Tuesday.
I thought of these executive orders as more political. I hadn’t even really thought about it affecting medical research.
UNC Chapel Hill has received “a few” grant notices with such restrictions, said Johns, the senior associate vice chancellor for research. UNC still accepted those awards and made sure the research team was aware of the conditions, he said.
Two researchers at other R1 institutions told The Chronicle they hadn’t gotten specific guidance from administrators about how to respond to recent award letters that mentioned complying with Trump’s orders.
Marian Jarlenski, a professor and vice chair for practice in health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh, said compliance with the anti-transgender executive order was included in her May 24 notice of award from the NIH. The grant in question focuses on research involving autoimmune diseases and pregnancy.
Jarlenski, who is the principal investigator for the project, hadn’t noticed the requirement until contacted by The Chronicle, and was unsure if it would affect the research. She said hadn’t received any guidance from the university. A spokesperson for Pittsburgh did not respond to requests for comment.
“I thought of these executive orders as more political,” she said. “I hadn’t even really thought about it affecting medical research.”
Rebecca Shlafer, an associate professor in the department of pediatrics at Minnesota, said she saw the anti-transgender requirement in a grant notice this month from the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that works to increase health-care access. HRSA did not respond to a request for comment.
Shlafer isn’t sure how the fine print will affect how she uses her public-health training grant. The Minnesota spokesperson didn’t answer The Chronicle’s questions about how campus officials are communicating with researchers.
‘Guesswork’ Marks Compliance Process
At Chapel Hill, the confusion is affecting all levels of research. While the university still tells researchers who are planning projects to “propose what you want to propose,” Johns said, that now comes with a caveat: “What you propose may no longer be fundable.”
Some of the university’s existing projects have been modified to comply with the Trump policy banning the NIH from funding grants on diversity-related topics, Johns said. But the way those restrictions are applied can be hard to interpret. The language in some individual grants appears to double down on the NIH’s anti-DEI policy, specifically banning DEI from that particular project. It’s unclear if there’s a trend in which grants include those limitations, Johns said.
“There’s a lot of guesswork involved in trying to understand what is acceptable,” he said.
Johns interprets the DEI policy as prohibiting focusing too narrowly on one demographic group. Faculty studying a particular health condition in the Latino/a population, for example, would be told by the university to “study it among a broader population, among a population that’s representative of the U.S.,” Johns said.
UNC relies on guidance from its legal counsel and higher-education advocacy organizations to make decisions on how to comply with changing requirements, Johns said. Chapel Hill has also reached out to the NIH, but often the response is, “We’re waiting for the guidance ourselves,” he said.
“It’s concerning because, of course, we don’t want to be in a situation where we run afoul of what we’re being directed to do,” he said, “but we also don’t have clarity over what is truly prohibited and what would be permissible.”
A federal judge announced a short-term win for scientists on Monday, ruling that Trump’s termination of hundreds of grants because they referenced DEI or LGBTQ issues was discriminatory, and ordering the government to restore the funding. The Trump administration can appeal. Federal officials have defended the decisions, arguing the projects in question focused on ideological agendas instead of scientific rigor.
Still, even if some or all of those grants are ultimately reinstated, the new requirements for accepting funding raise further questions about the independence of scientific research in the age of Trump.
“Anything that compromises the capacity to execute unbiased research erodes its quality and the integrity of science itself,” Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, said in a statement. “That comes with a grave threat to the nation’s health, security, and the future of the U.S. scientific enterprise.”
Stephanie Lee, a Chronicle senior writer, contributed to this article.
