It was an attack on science as a whole

“It was an attack on science as a whole”

Colette Delawalla, Stand Up for Science, talks about the US president's attacks on science
The university and scientific community was one of the first areas that US President Donald Trump began to put pressure on after taking office. The NGO Stand Up for Science aims to bring scientists together across disciplines to combat attacks on the independence of science. Jungle World spoke with founder Colette Delawalla about the establishment of the NGO, its goals, and the current situation of researchers in the US.

By Jan-Niklas Kemper
[This article posted on 10/30/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://jungle.world/artikel/2025/44/stand-up-for-science-trumpismus-es-war-ein-angriff-auf-die-gesamte-wissenschaft.]

Colette Delawalla is a doctoral student at Emory University in Atlanta, where she conducts research on alcohol consumption in the Behavioral Genetics of Addiction Laboratory in the Department of Clinical Psychology. She is the founder and executive director of Stand Up for Science, an organization that has been advocating for scientific freedom in the US since February 2025.

How was Stand Up for Science founded?
I was in the process of applying for a government research grant for my project, in which I am investigating patterns of alcohol consumption in the context of addiction. I had been working on the application for eight months when Trump authorized this list of over 200 banned words that are no longer allowed to appear in government documents and whose mention can result in federal research grants being terminated. What was widely interpreted as a measure against climate research or inclusion measures was an attack on science as a whole. In addition to terms such as “women,” “diversity,” and “gender,” the list also included terms such as “opioids,” “addiction,” and “definition.” But no one protested or understood the implications. That's why I had to do something.

In early March, you helped organize a protest in the capital with several thousand participants against the cuts in science funding. Further rallies took place in over 30 different locations across the country. But it didn't stop at that one day of protest, did it?

I'm not an activist, and I still don't feel like one, but at the first protest in Washington, D.C., I gained courage because there was suddenly so much attention for our cause. Scientific interest groups came together, met journalists and organizers—it would have felt wrong to just go home afterwards and say, “That's it.”

“First, we had to explain to our colleagues why science and why our work is political. Until six months ago, most researchers in the US considered themselves to be in an apolitical field.”
You say it was difficult to sustain this protest?

First, we had to explain to our colleagues why science and why our work is political. Until six months ago, most researchers in the US considered themselves to be in an apolitical field. Regardless of political differences, science in the US has always been highly regarded by all sides. The consensus was that science is good for the US, good for the world, and that we should invest in science because it is also economically beneficial.

But Stand Up for Science has now become institutionalized?
Yes, we have 18 employees here in Georgia, we have good connections to Washington, D.C., we employ fundraisers, and we are well on our way to becoming a serious political organization.
Many research projects have been and are being scrapped overnight. What has been your experience with this?

I know of many cases where researchers were in the middle of or nearing completion of their dissertations and, due to the sudden loss of funding, are no longer able to pay their tuition fees. Young researchers who have earned a research grant in an incredibly competitive field receive only an automated email notification from the authorities, to which they cannot even respond, informing them that their funding will be cut immediately. Others can no longer pay their study participants or their employees. Apart from the career setbacks this means for the researchers themselves, it also means that the findings from their work will not be available.

“Science proves that men are not superior to women, and white people are not smarter than people of color.”

Do you expect a large exodus abroad?
Thousands have already lost their jobs. According to our calculations, another 70,000 jobs will be cut next year in federally funded health research alone. These people have spent years specializing and now have no opportunity to apply this knowledge or gain new insights. However, I don't believe there will be a large migration, but rather that people will look for work in other areas, which I think is even worse. Because then these projects won't be carried out elsewhere instead; they simply won't be carried out at all.

Measures that target climate, gender, or inclusion research are obviously politically motivated. But why is Trump launching an all-out attack on science? The National Science Foundation alone, which funds about 25 percent of all basic research at universities supported by the federal government, is facing cuts of over 50 percent for the 2026 fiscal year.

There are three major currents in the Maga movement: Trump and those who primarily seek power, the tech bros, and Christian fundamentalists. What ideologically unites these three is the belief that white, healthy, heterosexual men are better than all other people and stand at the top of the natural hierarchy.

Science and research as we know them today fundamentally oppose this ideology. Science testifies that men are not superior to women, and white people are not smarter than people of color. That is why they attack the value and reputation of science so vehemently.

“Gutting and disempowering the science sector in this way is a symptom of fascism.”

What tasks now lie ahead for you as Stand Up for Science?
There are internal and external challenges. Internally, we need to mobilize and make it clear to the scientists affected that science is political. My colleagues do not see themselves as activists. All of this is new to us; for many, our protest on March 7 was their first time at a demonstration. Externally, we need to educate members of Congress and the public that we are in the midst of an existential crisis. People need to understand that it's not just a few scientists who no longer have enough money to conduct a few insignificant studies. Trump and his administration are trying with all their might to attack all the institutions that reveal truths to people that do not correspond to the ideological beliefs of the MAGA movement. Gutting and disempowering the scientific sector in this way is a symptom of fascism.

What is your protest strategy?
We try to introduce people to activism in various ways. We are currently implementing a 31-day activism program in which people can spend five minutes of their time each day getting involved, for example by sending emails to members of Congress, participating in social media campaigns, or signing a petition. We teach our people that activism can be very simple, thereby increasing their willingness to take action and changing the culture in our field of work. And, of course, we try to keep the pressure on members of Congress high. We believe that science can be the decisive issue in some constituencies in order to at least bring Congress back into Democratic hands in next year's midterm elections.