Taking It to the Streets: Scientists Mobilize to Fight Trump’s “Unprecedented” Anti-Science Agenda

SAN FRANCISCO—They came to testify to the life-saving benefits of medical research. They came to explain how scientific discoveries avert disasters and keep skyscrapers standing during earthquakes. They came to rail against the imminent human, social and environmental harms sure to result from slashing scientific funding and firing tens of thousands of federal workers with specialized scientific expertise.

Scientists turned out in force in cities and campuses across the country and Europe Friday to protest what they call the Trump administration’s “unprecedented” assault on federal scientific agencies and to help the public understand science’s crucial role in protecting people and the planet.

Within weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration had issued a rapid-fire series of orders to freeze grants from the nation’s basic science funders, pause federal funding and research payments, scrub websites of references to climate, block public access to critical health, environmental and climate datasets and analysis tools, and fire workers across the federal bureaucracy.

Alarmed at how quickly and indiscriminately the Trump administration is dismantling the nation’s scientific infrastructure, a core group of early-career scientists jump-started a grassroots campaign to Stand Up for Science that rapidly gained widespread support.

Over just a few weeks, Stand Up for Science organized nationwide rallies to “defend science as a public good and a pillar of social, political, and economic progress.” And crowds of scientists and citizens concerned about the administration’s anti-science agenda showed up en masse on Friday at scores of U.S. and European cities to amplify their calls to protect scientific integrity and ensure that its benefits serve everyone.

Scientists from all backgrounds and fields crowded into San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza on a crisp sunny day to voice their concerns about the Trump administration’s anti-science efforts. Among the many signs in the crowd: “Up and atom. Stand up for science.” “It’s time to react.” “We want scientific data not alternative facts.”

“I’m here basically to support the idea that science is really important, and it’s important for everybody,” said physicist Rob Semper, chief science officer at the Exploratorium, the storied San Francisco science museum. “It’s not just doing the research, it’s the results of the research, and it’s also thinking about how to help the world with new knowledge, new information.” 

Chants of “Science! Science! Science!” erupted after speakers finished.

Semper, who taught science before joining the Exploratorium decades ago, loved science since he was a kid and always had a passion for helping people understand the world around them. “I really believed in having the public have opportunities to learn about the world and learn about science. That’s kind of why I’m here today,” he said, adding, “science is just a critical part of the Bay Area, a critical part of the country and the world.”

Sara Heintzelman was the education and outreach coordinator for the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. It was a dream job to work at a premier science agency like NOAA, Heintzelman said. 

She harnessed her background in ecology and interdisciplinary marine science to close the gap “between the amazing science we’re doing and the general public being able to understand it so they can take action.”

She spent years as the education team lead, running school, public and communication programs to help communities understand the importance of protecting marine sanctuaries.

After 15 years as a NOAA contractor, she was hired as a federal employee. That was seven months ago. She learned she was being fired via email. She had to forward the email to her supervisor, who didn’t know about it. “I was given 64 minutes before I was terminated and no severance,” Heintzelman said.

She’s heard “tons” of stories just like hers, leading to “tons of institutional knowledge lost” across the sanctuary system and in NOAA. “Hundreds of probationary employees, many who I’ve been hearing have the same story, worked as a contractor for years and years, had been in similar roles, just got a promotion, or just finally got hired as a federal employee,” she said. And with no notice, they’re now “just gone.”

She’s heard from scientists around the world reaching out to support her and all the scientists fired and voicing concerns about the ripple effects because NOAA’s reach extends far beyond the United States.

Heintzelman’s 15-year-old son wants to go into climate science, but she worries about the future for him. “We don’t have time to waste right now in our climate science and in our conservation work,” she said.

“We Have to Fight for Democracy” 

Across the Atlantic, several hundred scientists and supporters marched in Vienna, Austria, on Friday in solidarity with colleagues, friends and relatives in the U.S. science community.

Speakers warned of similar dangers in Austria, where a populist rightwing party that deliberately spread deadly disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic won a plurality of votes in the October 2024 election. 

The FPÖ, whose leaders also reject climate science and promised to tear down wind turbines, nearly came to power last month, until a coalition of smaller parties joined to form a parliamentary majority.

At the march’s final stop, beneath the neo-Gothic spires of the Votiv Kirche, climate economist Sigrid Stangl, recently named Austria’s scientist of the year, said she has received distressing emails from U.S. friends describing the traumatizing stress of job loss or funding cuts, one of the things that motivated her to join the demonstration.

She reminded listeners that science not only needs funding, but that it needs a stable, functioning democracy. “That appears to be breaking down in the United States today,” she said. 

She also warned that similar dangers lurk at home in Austria.

“We came very close to having an anti-science party or anti-science chancellor just a few weeks ago,” she said. “And that means we have to fight for democracy in order to have a basis for being scientifically active.”

“In Peer Review We Trust” 

Back in the U.S., chants of “science not silence” overwhelmed visitors as they entered Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan. Over the course of the first hour of the protest, the center of the park became almost unmaneuverable—tourists and onlookers weaved their way through hundreds of protesters. 

People in the crowd, which coalesced close to the Washington Square Arch, held signs with slogans like “Elon get a math tutor” and “in peer review we trust.” 

As the protest began, an organizer asked how many people there were funded by the National Institutes of Health, a target of controversial cuts to the federal government. Countless hands went up, including that of research assistant Miranda Aldis, who works in a retrovirology lab at The Rockefeller University. 

“Our grant is on hold at the [National Institutes of Health] right now,” said Aldis. The principal investigator at her laboratory, along with his wife, designed shirts for the occasion, with the words “Save NIH” emblazoned on the front.

Research like Aldis’ was lauded in speeches at the protest, particularly due to its role in developing treatments for HIV, the virus that attacks the body’s immune system and causes AIDS.

“I’m here to honor the HIV patients I cared for,” said Claire Pomeroy, the president of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, which awards honors for medical research. “Science is hope.”

The chief artificial intelligence scientist at Meta, Yann LeCun, said that the “seed” of many technological advancements is publicly funded university research.

“Private funding does not fund long-term research because the return is so far in the future,” said LeCun. He said he also worries that the foreign scientists who initially moved to the U.S. for its position at the forefront of biomedical research might return home, further stunting medical advancements across the nation. 

“This Is Going to Affect Everybody”

Similar sentiments filled the air down the New Jersey Turnpike in Philadelphia, where the scientific breakthrough making the COVID-19 vaccine possible took place. Protesters emphasized the vital role science plays in saving lives, improving quality of life and advancing technology. 

“This isn’t some ivory tower niche issue,” said Amanda Rabinowitz, a neuropsychologist and federally funded researcher. “This is going to affect everybody, whether you have a loved one who is sick and is waiting for the cures of tomorrow, if you benefit from vaccines or from being able to get good, up-to-date information on the CDC website about a flu outbreak,” she said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Speakers and attendees also noted the local economy’s dependence on federal funding and research institutions like the University of Pennsylvania, which employs thousands of local residents. 

The protesters called on the city’s institutions to publicly disavow the Trump administration’s cuts to funding for scientific research and its attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. One protester held up a homemade sign reading, “Hey Penn, Stop Bootlicking!” In 2023, Penn was the largest employer in Philadelphia, followed by the federal government. 

“In 2023, the NIH alone contributed over $2 billion to the Pennsylvania economy,” said Amanda Therrien, a neuroscientist who lives and works in Philadelphia. “The return on that was over $5 billion, and it supported about 22,000 jobs in the state that year. So that’s the scale of broad impact that significant cuts to this infrastructure are going to have for everyone in the state.”

The protesters also talked about the history of scientific censorship and the importance of speaking out. “These kinds of attacks on science, they’re not new. They’ve happened throughout human history, because science has a tendency to reveal facts, and oftentimes those facts are inconvenient to the narratives being pushed by people in power,” Therrien said. “We want to remind people this isn’t new. It doesn’t end today. We’re going to have to keep fighting, and we have the power to do that.”

“Mad Scientist”

Katherine Sivek knows all about fighting. Resting in her motorized wheelchair in Raleigh, North Carolina, she balanced a sign on the tips of her dark blue slippers: “NIH funding helps research my rare terminal disease.”

An arrow pointed to the letters: ALS. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable neurodegenerative disorder in which the muscles weaken and atrophy, until the person can no longer talk, eat or breathe. Most people with ALS live only two to five years.

Sivek, 33, was diagnosed a year ago. The Siveks routinely travel more than 50 miles for treatment at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, where scientists are working on ways to arrest and ultimately cure the disease. 

Without funding from the National Institutes of Health to continue that research, people with ALS will have no options but to wait to die.

But Sivek can still talk. She can still protest. And with the help of her husband, Ethan, she attended the demonstration today “to represent other ALS patients who are bedridden, who need ventilation to breathe, who can’t talk.” 

The Siveks were among the 400 to 500 demonstrators who gathered on the grassy expanse of Halifax Mall next to the state legislative buildings to support science and scientists—also major economic drivers in the state. 

People wore white coats, while others hoisted signs that read “mad scientist.” A long line formed at a booth where Robby Poore was screen-printing posters: A fist holding a microscope in blood-red ink.

Johnna Frierson, who is Black, is the associate dean of equity, diversity and inclusion for the basic sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. She earned a doctorate in microbiology and immunology from Vanderbilt University and now develops programs to support diversity in the sciences. 

“I’m here for those individuals who have been told directly or indirectly that they don’t belong in science because they don’t fit an image of a scientist,” she said. “I’ve had those experiences, and let me tell you something, if someone wants to call me a DEI hire, make sure the DEI stands for Definitely Earned It.”

Dani Lin Hunter is the research and education manager at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. “Science plays an integral role in environmental justice,” she said, “by validating the experience of communities who are gaslit by polluters who say there’s nothing wrong.”

“It Just Feels Very Threatening” 

Further south, in Birmingham, Alabama, about 500 people gathered at Railroad Park, in the shadow of the city’s Children’s Hospital. 

Many of the attendees were students or faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a Tier 1 research institution in the heart of deep red Alabama that receives hundreds of millions of dollars in medical research funding every year.  

Kristina Visscher, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease at UAB, said she chose to speak at the rally because she was “terrified” of the consequences of funding cuts to medical research. 

“It’s really easy to tear things down, and it’s really hard to build them up,” Visscher said. “And we have spent 100 years as a nation becoming the best in science. We’ve put a lot of effort into that, a lot of time, thousands of people, millions of hours, and it can be broken.” 

She said she didn’t realize how fragile these systems are until recently. “They’re pretty easy to break,” she said. “And that terrifies me.”

Joshua Lewis, a Ph.D. candidate working on his dissertation on demography and aging research at UAB, told the crowd he had been offered a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan to continue his career in academia, only to have the offer retracted a few days later due to funding uncertainties. 

“These are mainstay things that my mentors and predecessors who do this type of work have done and then gone on to have great careers,” Lewis said after the rally. “To have these opportunities, and then seemingly have them snatched away, I think, is the part that’s been so frustrating in all of it.”

Lewis said he was now looking at opportunities to continue research in Germany and Finland. 

Rebecca Jensen, an undergraduate public health student, said she was especially disturbed by the disappearance of federal databases and the circulating list of keyword topics that can get a grant flagged for further review by the administration. 

“With the threats to funding, it almost feels kind of like a mafia boss threat,” Jensen said. “Like if you don’t research the things we want you to, you don’t get any funding at all. It’s kind of scary like that, and it just feels very threatening.” 

Scientists traditionally prefer to focus on their research and shy away from activism. But these are not normal times, many said. 

“We Have to Take Science Back”

Back in San Francisco, Paul English, a retired environmental epidemiologist who worked for years at California’s Department of Public Health and the Public Health Institute, said he was there to stand in solidarity with his fellow scientists to protest the massive cuts at “all our great science institutes” that save lives.

English is part of Scientist Rebellion, a coalition of scientists who became activists to counter harmful government policies.They could no longer sit on the sidelines, he said, “realizing that we’re falling off a cliff, not having the support of the U.S. government to continue research,” and the harmful impacts those losses will have on people’s lives.

“We feel it’s like a real crisis, a real emergency at this point, to protest these cuts that are happening,” English said.

In Washington, D.C., the site of the main Stand Up for Science event, scientists reminded the crowd that they’ve won battles against anti-science groups before. 

“Creationists, anti-vaxxers, climate science deniers, we have taken them on,” said astronomer Phil Plait. “We made a lot of progress, but only when we take action, action in the courts, action in the streets, actions online.” 

“People’s lives are thrown into disarray, and millions can and do die,” Plait said. “That’s what happens when you deny science on a national scale. That’s what happens when we don’t fight. We cannot let this continue. We have to take science back.”

He urged scientists and their supporters to talk to their representatives, senators, family, neighbors and friends. “March, protest, go to rallies,” Plait said. “Make your voice heard.”