Faculty at several Chicago universities protest planned cuts to federal research grants
Professors, researchers, and faculty members from several Chicago colleges rallied at the University of Illinois Chicago on Wednesday to protest the Trump administration's planned funding cuts to research grants.
"When Donald Trump, Elon Musk, their minions, and DOGE teams are on the attack, what do we do? We're here to stand up and fight back," said Aaron Krall, a senior lecturer in English at UIC, and president of the UIC faculty union. "We're standing up for our research, for our universities, and for our communities."
Faculty members from UIC, the University of Chicago, DePaul University, Northwestern University, and many more gathered at UIC on Wednesday to talk about their schools' groundbreaking research, medical advancements, and workforce training for students.
They said, without grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, everyone's health will suffer.
Last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked the NIH from implementing cuts the Trump administration had ordered for medical research grants. A coalition of attorneys general from 22 states, including Illinois, had sued the Trump administration over the cuts.
"We will not allow the Trump Administration to unlawfully undermine our economy, hamstring our competitiveness, or play politics with our public health," Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
The ruling halts the cuts until further arguments in court, with the next hearing set for Friday.
The NIH has said the cuts would save the federal government more than $4 billion a year.
Some groups have called on Congress to step in. The cuts will affect institutions across the board, critics say, including in states that supported Republicans in the president's coalition.
The vast majority of medical research in the U.S. is supported by NIH funding, which "includes over 2,800 hospitals, medical schools, universities, and other research institutions" nationwide. Research for curing cancer and addressing chronic health conditions like diabetes and heart disease would be among the projects impacted, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities warned.
