Science Grants Under Fire: Three NSF Programs Ruled Unconstitutional

The Department of Justice just told the National Science Foundation to stop running three of its science education programs the way they were designed. The legal opinion comes from the Office of Legal Counsel, which basically advises the government on what is allowed. It does not count as a court ruling, but the NSF still has to follow it.

So what happens to the money? The DOJ says NSF cannot just move that funding somewhere else. Congress gave NSF a big pool of money for STEM education, about $938 million total. The programs in question make up roughly $104 million of that. Since the cash was already approved for those specific purposes, NSF must keep the money within the overall STEM education budget instead.

A couple other programs have problematic parts but might survive. The Advanced Technological Education program and the Advance program both contain race or sex based requirements. The DOJ says those pieces can be cut out while keeping the rest of the programs running. NSF just cannot enforce those unconstitutional parts.

Four programs walked away clean, including one serving tribal colleges and universities. However, three others must be run without looking at race or sex at all. These include the Graduate Research Fellowship Program, Advancing Informal STEM Learning, and the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program.

This all started when NSF asked the DOJ back in May to check nine programs for equal protection violations. The timing matters because Congress itself helped create some of these programs. The Hispanic-Serving Institutions program came from the America COMPETES Act signed by President George W. Bush in 2007. The DOJ opinion argued Congress never proved there was a compelling reason tied to past discrimination to justify the racial criteria.

The legal team leaned heavily on last years Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions versus Harvard. That case ended the use of race in college admissions. The DOJ also pointed to earlier opinions that struck down race and sex based programs at the Education and Agriculture departments. Critics like former NASA chief of staff Representative George Whitesides called the move devastating for equal opportunity and the nations future STEM workforce.