Hundreds of Pennsylvania community members, including Ph.D. students from Temple, gathered in 20-degree weather to protest President Donald Trump and his administration’s recent cuts to the Department of Education’s scientific research.
The protest occurred outside of Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick’s office on Market Street near South 20th Street.
The rally was organized by United Academics of Philadelphia, a union that represents staff, adjuncts and non-tenure-track faculty at colleges and universities around Philadelphia. The protestors called for McCormick to represent his constituents by supporting scientific jobs and research.
“The Trump administration is weaponizing executive orders to strip funding from research programs based on nothing more than the words they use — words like diversity, nonbinary and even women,” said Lindsay Guare, a Ph.D candidate in biomedical studies at Penn.
On Feb. 10, the Department of Government Efficiency made $881 million in cuts to essential government contracts that fund college research efforts. In the days that followed, the U.S. Department of Education canceled an additional $350 million in spending.
Different speakers and students from universities, like Temple, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel and the Community College of Philadelphia, shared their stories on how the cuts affected their research funding. Protestors chose McCormick’s office due to his silence on the recent cuts to many governmental departments.
In between keynote speakers, UAP led a chant, stating “When higher ED is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
The decision impacts many professors and students, like Terri Laufer, a faculty member at Penn’s School of Medicine. Laufer’s work with cancer medicine and autoimmunity is funded by the government and the National Institute of Health.
“It’s just not that we want to just improve cancer care,” Laufer said. “Short term, we are also supporting the economy. We buy the apartments to live in and the restaurants we live in. Senator McCormick, do you care about the health of the citizens and veterans of Pennsylvania? We do.”
People like Liam Maher, are worried about how the cuts in areas like medical research will affect the health of current and future patients.
“I learned the importance of protecting jobs in academia and the threats we are facing with, as I said, this anti-intellectual politics,” said Maher, an Art History Ph.D. candidate at Temple. “My mom has been battling cancer for a while, and it’s through experimental treatments that she has been able to find some stability with her health. These cuts we are seeing to the sciences have some really personal effects in people’s lives.”
Members of different organizations, like the Get Up-UAW, also attended the protest. Get Up-UAW is the union representing graduate teaching and research employees at Penn.
When funding is taken away, universities and institutions are not able to continue operating like they’re supposed to, said Sam Layding, a PhD candidate at The University of Pennsylvania who studies chemical and biomolecular engineering.
“We need [McCormick] to have the back of the taxpayers and the workers of this state in this issue, and not the backs of the political donor class who are angling for major tax cuts in the upcoming congressional tax cut vote,” Layding said.
The protest at McCormick’s office is one of the few student rallies related to the executive orders and budget cuts, with activists on campuses across the country mostly staying quiet, Inside Higher Ed reported.
“This is why I’m here today,” Guare said. “To demand that Pennsylvania’s elected officials stand with us. To protect science. To protect the people it serves. I want my representatives to fight to expand support for my research and that of those around me. I’m here to remind them that the work done in Philadelphia’s institutions doesn’t just lead the world in innovation — it saves lives. And that is worth defending.”
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