WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-Texas), released an investigative report into how the National Science Foundation (NSF) has increasingly politicized the use of taxpayer dollars meant for scientific research. The report details how more than one quarter of all NSF spending now flows to support left-wing ideological crusades masked as “academic research.” The report showcases how some of this research has contributed to the radicalization of the scientific community and American campuses, including recent outbreaks of campus antisemitism.

In its first week, the Biden-Harris administration mandated that all taxpayer-funded scientific research and development (R&D) must incorporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) values. Sen. Cruz’s investigation found that in response to this directive, NSF allocated over $2.05 billion to thousands of research projects that promoted neo-Marxist perspectives or DEI tenets. Taxpayer dollars supported projects of questionable scientific merit, often led by researchers who used federal R&D dollars to drive divisive, extremist ideologies in their classrooms and on their campuses.

The Committee’s analysis identified 3,483 grants—over 10% of all NSF grants awarded during the Biden-Harris administration—totaling more than $2.05 billion went to questionable projects that promoted DEI or pushed neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle. The Committee grouped these grants into five categories: Status, Social Justice, Gender, Race, and Environmental Justice.

The report reveals, through examples across categories, that many of the most extreme research proposals were led by principal investigators who are also promoting radical perspectives through on-campus activism and in their classrooms.

The report cites the following examples:

• Shirin Vossoughi is an associate professor of learning sciences at Northwestern University and the co-principal investigator for a $1,034,751 NSF grant awarded in 2023 for a project titled, “Reimagining Educator Learning Pathways Through Storywork for Racial Equity in STEM.” Vossoughi credits Marxist traditions for her decision to teach children “the meaning of ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’” after Hamas’s attack against Israel.

• In 2023, NSF awarded Georgia Institute of Technology’s (Georgia Tech) Kelly Cross $99,791 to “disrupt[] racialized privilege in the STEM classroom” by acknowledging “Whiteness and White Supremacy” are “deeply ingrained in the past, present and future of U.S. Higher education.” Cross sought to “subvert[] these toxic systems... to creat[e] a more equitable educational system” and “initiate a national conversation about addressing racial inequity and White Supremacy in the STEM profession and classroom” with the support of the grant.

• In 2022, NSF awarded San Jose State University $401,744 for an ongoing project to “transform[] science teaching and learning through empowering teachers and students as climate justice action researchers and change agents.” The project is meant to foster the “development of a hub for justice-centered science education and will produce school-based materials and professional development activities that examine the interwoven nature of climate justice and racial justice...
• The principal investigator for the project, Tammie Visintainer, sees her classroom as a venue for social activism. In an April 2024 article, Visintainer wrote that her course “for aspiring middle and high school science teachers… centers racial justice in science education.”

• At the end of her course, she showed her students photos of Israel dropping pamphlets inside the Gaza Strip to warn residents to move out of the way of incoming rocket fire. Visintainer, who claimed Hamas’s October terror attack needed to be contextualized, explained the photos “create spaces that engage complexity in promotion of shared dignity and humanity and to build bridges across differences” but did not explain their scientific educational purpose.

The report notes that some universities, like the University of Texas at Austin, have recognized that DEI efforts can undermine diversity, leading UT Austin to close its DEI office and redirect funds to teaching and research. In the conclusion, the report recommends Congress ban federal funding to institutions that permit discrimination or violate anti-discrimination laws, and calls for NSF to end DEI policies created under the Biden-Harris administration.

Read the full report HERE.

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