Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released a database of over 3,400 National Science Foundation, or NSF, grants awarded towards what he deemed “questionable” research that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion or “advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda” in a Feb. 11 press release. Nineteen of the listed grants were Northeastern research projects, ranging from cyber defense to stem cells to safe drinking water.
The report outlines over $2 billion worth of “Woke DEI grants at NSF,” almost $14 million of which has gone to research at Northeastern since 2021. According to the report, the NSF immediately froze its annual grant review to ensure compliance with President Donald Trump’s directives, notably his attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives. All grants submitted to the NSF must explain the intended “broader impacts” of their research and how the outcomes may “benefit society.”
In October 2024, the United States Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation — where Cruz serves as chairman — announced it would be reviewing all funding activities and services to ensure compliance with recent executive orders. Cruz wrote the NSF, in conjunction with former President Joe Biden’s administration, has “increasingly politicized the use of taxpayer dollars meant for scientific research.” The October 2024 report alleges that one-quarter of the NSF’s total spending is allocated to “left-wing ideological crusades masked as ‘academic research.’”
In Northeastern’s “Navigating a New Political Landscape” FAQ, a Jan. 30 update said any faculty conducting research “under previously executed contracts with federal agencies should continue to fulfill the terms of those awards, unless a U.S. Government contracts officer has issued a stop work order to Northeastern for a particular grant, contract or project at issue.”
The investigation, led by Cruz, labeled each project with one or multiple “category” tags: Social Justice, Race, Gender, Environmental Justice and Status. Across Northeastern’s 19 named projects, 17 of the projects were logged in the “Status” category, 13 in Social Justice, three in Race, five in Gender and two in Environmental Justice.
According to Cruz’s October 2024 report, grants tagged with “Status” funded research involved underrepresented or socioeconomically disadvantaged populations and “exceeded congressional mandates by giving taxpayer money to certain researchers not due to the strength of the application but because the applicant identified a group of people as a discriminated, oppressed class.”
Projects marked as Social Justice “prioritized inclusivity over scientific advancements and achievements,” while those in the Gender category “casually yet authoritatively asserted, without evidence, that white men were barriers to opportunity,” Cruz’s report says.
Projects in the Race category were allegedly “aimed at addressing ‘racial inequity and White Supremacy,’” and projects under Environmental Justice “claimed the environmental sciences must be investigated through the lens of left-wing social activism.”
The now-public database served as the foundation for Cruz’s October 2024 investigative report, which claimed that under the Biden administration, the NSF funded billions of dollars in projects geared toward “advancing divisive social ideologies rather than investigating hard science” which accounted for over 10% of all NSF grants. Of the 19 identified Northeastern grants, 11 were approved 2022, four in 2023 and and four 2024.
The full list of search terms that were used to flag “problematic” reports included hundreds of words and key phrases. Projects with descriptions mentioning underrepresented groups, minorities, victims, injustice, equity, gender identity, sexism, racism, white supremacy and climate change were listed as keyword indicators for “problematic grants.”
“I am proud to release our investigation’s database, which exposes how the Biden administration weaponized federal agencies to push a far-left ideology,” Cruz wrote in the press release. “Congress must end the politicization of NSF funding and restore integrity to scientific research.”
The database is the most recent federal threat to scientific research at Northeastern. In an FAQ on the NSF’s website, it said it can’t “take action to delay or stop payment for active awards based solely on actual or potential non-compliance with the Executive Orders.”
The 19 Northeastern projects in order of most to least funded.
2230036 received $2.51 million total funding. Common Senses (Standards for Enacting Sensor Networks for an Equitable Society) aims to use sensor networks and community-driven data analysis to enhance climate resilience in Boston’s historically Black neighborhoods along Blue Hill Ave. One year, 11 months remain.
2208797 received $1.6 million in total funding. Broadening Participation in the CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service Program aims to increase diversity in the cybersecurity workforce by expanding bridge programs for underrepresented students pursuing graduate degrees. Two years, four months remain.
2216629 received $1.32 million in total funding. Data Alliance on Persistence and Perception in Computing integrates multiple data sources to enable institutions to increase accessibility of data as well as diversity and retention in undergraduate computing education. Completed.
2219953 received $1.28 million in total funding. Large-Aperture 160-Element Coherent Hydrophone Array System Upgrades and Operational Readiness Testing for Real-Time Continental-Shelf Scale Ocean Acoustic Monitoring aims to update the Passive Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing for improved detection of marine life, geophysical events and human activities. Nine months remain.
2204746 received $1 million in total funding. NE-LSAMP: Northeastern University, nominated by the Northeast Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, or LSAMP, aims to increase diversity in STEM by supporting the Bridge to the Doctorate (BD) program by preparing 12 LSAMP alumni for doctoral studies and careers in STEM fields. Completed.
2227756 received $1 million in total funding. Role of Mitochondria as Intracellular Shuttles for Nuclear Gene-Regulatory Transcription Factors During Pluripotent Cell Division and Fate Specification aims to uncover how mitochondria contribute to the differentiation of embryonic and placental cells. Two years remain.
2246079 received $1 million in total funding. CUE-M: Level Up: Charting a Pathway Toward Inclusive Computing aims to address challenges of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessible learning in undergraduate computing education by bringing together faculty from across the country to build consensus for a unified vision of inclusive undergraduate computing education. Completed.
2228510 received $750,000 in total funding. SAI-R: Designing an Improved Information Infrastructure for Better Decision Making in Pharmaceutical Supply Chains aims to design a new information infrastructure for pharmaceutical supply chains to optimize decision-making and mitigate drug shortages through data sharing, analysis and policy development. Six months remain.
2208182 received $706,254 in total funding. Collaborative Research: Modeling and Control of Non-Passive Networks with Distributed Time-Delays: Application in Epidemic Control aims to develop a comprehensive framework for data-driven control of large-scale networks where time delays and the corresponding complex behavior can play a substantial role, such as with disease spread. Six months remain.
2228533 received $508,000 in total funding. Collaborative Research: SAI-R: Dynamical Coupling of Physical and Social Infrastructures: Evaluating the Impacts of Social Capital on Access to Safe Well Water aims to explore the relationship between social networks and access to safe drinking water from private wells, by analyzing cell phone mobility data as well as water quality and socioeconomic factors. One year, six months remain.
2218791 received $479,321 in total funding. Collaborative Research: HNDS-I. Mobility Data for Communities (MD4C): Using Cell-Phone Records to Study Societal Dynamics aims to study mobility patterns and social dynamics by studying cell phone location records, with a focus on correcting biases and ensuring accurate representation of diverse populations. 10 months remain.
2143882 received $392,134 in total funding. (Includes COVID-19 Spending) – CAREER: Learning Visual Representations of Motor Function in Infants as Prodromal Signs for Autism aims to develop an AI-guided system for tracking infant motor function to identify early signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Two years, two months remain.
2318290 received $362,324 in total funding. SATC: CORE: MEDIUM: Increasing User Autonomy and Advertiser and Platform Responsibility in Online Advertising aims to empower users by improving accountability in online advertising by studying how platforms, advertisers, and users interact with digital ads, as well as studying discriminatory practices in online advertising. Two years, ten months remain.
2339761 received $290,000 in total funding. (3 years, 10 months remain) – CAREER: Understanding How Hierarchical Organization of Growth Plate Stem Cells Controls Skeletal Growth aims to explore how growth plate stem cells regulate skeletal growth and closure, and how estrogen signaling influences this process, while integrating educational outreach to raise awareness and engagement with this research. Three years, ten months remain.
2153690 received $250,000 in total funding. Collaborative Research: SATC: Core: Small: Secure and Robust Machine Learning in Multi-Tenant Cloud FPGA aims to enhance the security of multi-tenant cloud FPGA systems by developing defenses against adversarial Machine Learning model tampering, while also promoting STEM education through curriculum development and outreach programs. Four months remain.
2149158 received $219,319 in total funding. Collaborative Research: Building a Framework for the Causes of and Solutions to the Pluralistic Ignorance Gap on Climate Change aims to examine why people underestimate others’ concerns about climate change, which discourages collective action and support, while testing interventions to correct these social misconceptions. Completed.
2340482 received $112,067 in total funding. CAREER: Strengthening the Theoretical Foundations of Federated Learning: Utilizing Underlying Data Statistics in Mitigating Heterogeneity and Client Faults aims to enhance federated learning, which enables ML models to be trained across decentralized devices without sharing raw data, developing new mathematical frameworks and algorithms that improve resilience against data heterogeneity, system faults and external attacks. Three years, 10 months remain.
2329684 received $99,593 in total funding. Conference: 2023 NSF FW-HTF PI Meeting; Boston, Massachusetts; Aug. 31 to Sept.1 2023 was a conference bringing together principal investigators, graduate students, and industry stakeholders, discussing research progress, industry insights, and diversity, inclusion, and the evolving nature of work in the face of global challenges. Completed. 2349755 received $30,000 in total funding. Conference: Mid-Atlantic Topology Conference 2024 explored key topics in topology, including geometric group theory, computational topology and homotopy theory, and emphasized support for early-career researchers and underrepresented groups. Completed.
