The America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit organization run by members of President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration, is suing the National Science Foundation over records related to the agency’s prioritization of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
According to the AFL’s lawsuit, the NSF received a request for the records in 2023 but failed to release them in time, an alleged violation of the Freedom of Information Act.
The lawsuit, filed on October 30 in federal court, comes after Senator Ted Cruz, Texas Republican and ranking member of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, published a report accusing the Biden-Harris administration of practicing political science.
The report says that since Biden took office in 2021, the NSF has awarded more than $2 billion to thousands of scientific research projects that promote DEI or “push neo-Marxist ideas about the tolerance of class struggle,” with such awards reportedly increasing since. 0.29 percent of all new grants in 2021 to 27 percent in 2024.
“The Biden-Harris administration has hijacked billions of federal taxpayer funds intended for critical scientific research to promote anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-American DEI and leftist ideologies,” the AFL said in a news release. “Rewarding taxpayer dollars to radical measures in the name of ‘science’ is a high-level government weaponization, waste, fraud and abuse. The AFL will continue to fight to expose the bias of the Biden-Harris administration, stop the misuse of taxpayer funds, and protect the integrity of our taxpayer-funded research business.”
The AFL said it is investigating NSF’s support of DEI programs under the Biden-Harris administration, including a public records request in 2023 for resumes and other personnel documents “to better understand the background of NSF appointees,” according to the report. the case.
And those records are at the center of the AFL’s complaint against the NSF, which the AFL believes, if released, will support strong claims that the Biden-Harris administration’s focus on DEI has endangered the scientific research enterprise.
“Government-sponsored scientific research plays an important role in our national security and economic well-being. Every dollar counts,” said Reed D. Rubinstein, AFL executive vice president. “By building on Senator Cruz’s work, the AFL’s oversight will identify bad actors in government and elsewhere, laying the groundwork for accountability.”
The NSF did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Source link
