Pennsylvania State Senator Nikil Saval (D-1) spoke at an AAUP rally on Feb. 19.
Credit: Devansh RaniwalaOver 300 individuals gathered together in Center City on Wednesday to protest recent federal funding cuts to academic research.
The rally, held outside the office of Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) in Center City, was organized by Labor for Higher Education in conjunction with the American Association of University Professors, American Federation of Teachers, United Auto Workers, and other groups. Faculty, students, and staff from several universities — including Penn, Temple University, and Drexel University — rallied in protest of the Trump administration’s changes to federal research funding policies.
The rally in Philadelphia was part of a larger “Nationwide Day of Action” organized by Labor for Higher Education, with more than a dozen protests in cities across the country.
“We’re here to push back against the Trump administration’s illegal and dangerous attacks on publicly funded research,” one speaker, whom The Daily Pennsylvanian was unable to identify, said. “Republicans are trying to fire workers, shutter crucial medical research, and kill our economy. We’re here to fight back.”
In particular, speakers emphasized the importance of scientific research and the significant risks brought on by the Trump administration’s “reckless” and “careless” cuts.
“This means that when your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, your son, your daughter need life-saving treatment, it will not be there!” AAUP President Todd Wolfson told the crowd.
Lindsay Guare, a genomics and computational biology Ph.D. candidate at the Perelman School of Medicine, similarly said that cuts to biomedical research would have “serious implications for both science workers and long-term medical health.”
“The work done in Philadelphia institutions doesn’t just lead the world in innovation; it saves lives, and that’s worth defending,” Guare said.
Guare also criticized the Trump administration’s attempts to enact political control over research agendas — citing the targeting of research proposals featuring words like “diversity,” “nonbinary,” and “women.” She noted that researchers often use these terms to “highlight the impact of our work” and worried that restrictions on these terms would limit her research agenda.
“If politics decides what I can and cannot study, I’m afraid I will fail the very people who need this research and inspire me to do it every day,” Guare told the crowd.
The speakers at the rally also discussed the instability and uncertainty created by the federal funding cuts. Chris Large, a postdoctoral fellow at the Medical School, spoke at the rally and told the DP that his clinic and research were “disrupted” as a result of the federal funding pause.
While Large’s funding was reinstated as a result of a court order to resume National Institutes of Health funding, he said that the experience has made him question the future of his career.
“I’ve already seen the effect that pausing grant funding can have on universities, and I’m very worried about my future and my ability to continue in academia in this country,” Large said.
Several local politicians also spoke at the event, including 2013 Engineering graduate and Pennsylvania state Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-Philadelphia), Pennsylvania state Sen. Nikil Saval (D-Philadelphia), and Philadelphia City Councilmember Kendra Brooks.
Krajewski told the crowd that the Trump administration was “attacking” academic institutions because they were “places of independent thought and knowledge.”
“This is not just about being anti-science,” Krajewski said. “This is about an agenda. They’re pushing a white supremacist, authoritarian agenda.”
After the rally, Krajewski spoke with the DP, emphasizing the importance of universities maintaining their independence amid political attacks.
“When you have political agendas attacking that independence, that is bad for higher education, and it’s bad for the future of our students,” Krajewski said.
Rallygoers like Large and Sam Layding — a chemical engineering Ph.D. student at the School of Engineering and Applied Science and organizer of the rally — urged McCormick to increase his support for Pennsylvania’s scientific research.
“Senator McCormick has the opportunity to be part of the congressional push to address this crisis and ensure and guarantee continued funding of scientific research in this country,” Layding said.
Medical School Professor Emeritus Terri Laufer echoed a similar sentiment.
“[McCormick] should step up and act in the best interest of the citizens of [Pennsylvania],” Laufer said. “Supporting biomedical research is an obvious place to start because no one wants to be the senator who says, ‘I don’t want to cure cancer.’”
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