Scientists are banding together for a major rally in the face of the Trump administration’s mass layoffs and the dismantling of research and federal institutions.
Following weeks of demonstrations against devastating cuts at the National Park Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, they’re gathering for a major protest Friday in the nation’s capital and at state capitals around the nation, which is expected to draw thousands of participants.
The goal is to “Stand up for Science,” and speakers at the event include prominent figures across several disciplines.
“If ever there were a time to ‘stand up for science,’ it is now,” Dr. Michael E. Mann, the director of the Center for Science, Sustainability, & the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Independent in an email.
“We have never witnessed an assault on the basic infrastructure for science in America like the one we’re experiencing now, thanks to Trump,” Musk and complicit congressional Republicans,” he added. “History will judge as to whether we sat idly by or spoke out at this defining moment.”
Mann is one of 30 speakers slated to sound the alarm. He will be joined at the U.S. capital by “Science Guy” Bill Nye, human genome project leader Francis Collins, and Dr. Gretchen Goldman, the President of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“We’re seeing devastating attacks on the federal science enterprise, and those are harming people across the country and the world,” said Goldman, who previously served in the Biden White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Department of Transportation. “In the first Trump administration, there also was a lot of disruption to federal science, but now those efforts are on steroids,” she told The Independent on Thursday.
While Goldman and Mann are established in their fields and already prominent voices in the scientific community, the event was created by students.
One leader is biologist Emma Courtney, a Ph.D. student at New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who is working on breast cancer research.
“My research is somewhat directly impacted by a lot of these things because I’m at the beginning of the Ph.D. and I’m looking at what I want to accomplish over the next few years,” she said.
“I’m currently on an National Science Foundation fellowship and I don’t really know what that’s going to look like next year,” said Courtney. “I was hoping to apply for a National Institutes of Health grant within the next year or two, and I’m not sure if that mechanism will exist.”
The rally started as an idea spread on social media, as well as in response to feelings of hopelessness in the face of the administration’s “unprecedented” threats against science, Courtney explained.
Since early February, Courtney says the movement has been “organic.”
“Science drives a lot of hope and that’s something that is currently being taken away from a lot of people who really need it,” she noted.
The rally marks the first step of what organizers hope will be a growing movement to protect science and empower people.
“From here, we’re seeing what pathways are effective in pushing back, in preserving everything we can,” said Goldman, noting they’re looking to new ways of moving forward.
“We need people to show up, to stand up, and keep pushing on this,” she added.
Mann, who got into science because he was fascinated by how the world works, says science — “unpolluted by ideology” — is fundamental to the human species and key to ensuring we meet the challenges of the moment.
“Rallies are just the beginning,” said Mann.
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