Why is Voldemort blowing up university science reseach?

A legion of hard working vital scientists are caught up in a high stakes fight. They are innocent victims who hopefully won't be blown up in the process. Trump is taking a bat to the leadship of the nation's educational leadership with a vengence.

The Dark Lord believes that the source of the progressive movement is a woke pool of professors that dominates the thinking at our top educational institutions. He further believe these folks to be intolerant of centrist or right thinking and is indoctrinating our next generation of workers.

Whether he's right (or partially right) can be debated, but he's made his mind up and is determined to fix the problem, no matter what the cost.

His view is that science talent can work anywhere and to put up with Harvard's 85% stipend for administrative costs tacked on to NIH grants is ridiculous as is the woke mindset that oozes from the pores of our elite schools.

Will these schools be able to negotiate a fair compromise? They have zero leverage and will end up a burnt cinder if they don't kiss the ring.

One way or another the scientific research will continue as scientists head for other schools or institutions that are willing to play nice with Voldemort. In the meantime there will be a ton of collateral damage that's in nobodies best interest.

How Trump Blew Up Northwestern’s Business Model

The federal government froze the university’s research funding. It hasn’t offered the school a way to get it back.

By Sara Randazzo and Nidhi Subbaraman, WSJ

June 15, 2025 7:00 am ET

In April, Northwestern University cardiologist Dr. Rod Passman learned the National Institutes of Health had abruptly halted funding for a $37 million trial testing a new way to treat dangerous heart arrhythmias, with about 1,500 patients already enrolled.

It was part of a universitywide funding freeze that threatened to stall hundreds of projects, including clinical trials with patients on lifesaving medication.

Through the spring, Northwestern used university money to pay bills previously covered by NIH grants, spending tens of millions of dollars monthly to keep labs and trials running without a break. Researchers and administrators now worry this stopgap can’t last.

“The university is totally keeping us on life support,” said Dr. Daniela Matei, a Northwestern oncologist. “The big question is for how long they can do this.”

For decades, Northwestern celebrated—and relied on—its growing pot of government funding. Now it’s a liability.

The sudden collapse of the once-symbiotic relationship between the federal government and higher education is torpedoing a half-century-old university business model and upending how science is done.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has cut or frozen billions of dollars in research funding to universities and proposed slashing budgets at government science agencies. Cutting federal funding, which accounts for more than half of university research funds nationwide, has been one of the main tools Trump has used to pressure universities to change their ways.

It’s a complete turnaround for today’s university researchers, for whom federal funding—from NIH, National Science Foundation, and other agencies—has never been in question. Billions of dollars have flowed annually to universities through competitive grants, funding basic research that can lead to cutting-edge medicine and technological innovations.

At places like Harvard and Columbia, funding cuts or freezes have come with lists of demands spanning changes to admissions and faculty hiring.

At others, like Northwestern, the path to restoration is less clear. In April, a Trump administration official told media that $790 million in federal funds to the Illinois university would be frozen, but that number has never been detailed or communicated directly to school officials, a school spokesman said. Nor has Trump told the university what they can do to get the money returned, the spokesman said, though the school’s president has met with Trump’s education secretary to discuss the situation on campus.

University officials say bills to NIH have simply gone unpaid. NIH grant officers in April were told not to communicate with Northwestern and other affected universities about the freeze, according to an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Northwestern researchers have had grants terminated or frozen from multiple agencies, the university said.

NIH didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Northwestern is one of 10 schools identified by the Trump administration’s federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism as initial targets. The Midwestern university drew national attention when school leaders last spring cut a deal with pro-Palestinian students to end an on-campus encampment.

A person holds a Palestinian flag at a protest on Northwestern’s campus.

A pro-Palestinian protest at Northwestern in April 2024. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The uncertainty at Northwestern and elsewhere threatens to disrupt the way universities have operated for decades, in a system built on the belief that research helps drive economic growth, technological innovation and medical advancements.

“We cannot do business as normal without external funding,” said Josh Leonard, a chemical and biological engineering professor at Northwestern whose lab is developing cancer treatments.

Northwestern’s relationship with the federal government first grew out of an urgent national security need.

As World War II dawned, Washington looked to Northwestern and other universities to help train tens of thousands of Naval servicemen and officers. By the middle of the war, almost a third of Northwestern’s income came from government contracts, according to university historian Kevin Leonard. The money went toward housing and educating the Naval recruits, who learned skills like navigation, engineering and seamanship. Midshipmen trained in an accelerated program became known disparagingly as “90-day wonders.”

As the war receded, government-sponsored research money began to flow. In 1949, an outgoing Northwestern president expressed unease about the growing reliance on federal money. “There was a fear of accepting money because of a potential loss of independence,” Leonard, the historian, said, along with concern that faculty would have less time to focus on students.

Initial misgivings aside, federal grants at Northwestern continued to rise, hitting 500 projects worth some $5.6 million by the early 1960s, a financial report from the time shows.

This increasing reliance mirrored what was happening at universities nationwide. During the Cold War, federal research investment became a way to bolster national security and counter Soviet advancements. President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 heralded the partnership but urged his administration to give money to universities beyond an elite batch of 20 that had captured half the federal funding.

The money, he wrote in a cabinet memorandum that year, produces “results that are needed now and in the future to achieve our many national goals in health, in defense, in space, in agriculture.”

At Northwestern, federal grants helped seed engineering and scientific research and even funded construction of the university library.

In the late 1980s, Northwestern chemist Richard Silverman’s NIH-funded lab developed a new molecule that later became a blockbuster drug used to treat fibromyalgia, epilepsy and neuropathic pain. Branded as Lyrica, the drug earned the university and researchers $1.4 billion dollars in royalties.

The breakthrough came unexpectedly while Silverman was seeking a different molecular property. “It was a big surprise to me,” Silverman said.

Other Northwestern scientists have won Nobel Prizes, created technology to deliver diabetes medicine and developed wireless sensors for NICU babies. The university estimates its research has generated $3 billion in economic impact and supported 14,500 jobs.

University leadership continued to push to boost Northwestern’s research prominence. In 2023, research funding topped $1 billion for the first time, an achievement celebrated by the university.

At the same time, a backlash was building against American universities.

Conservatives have long studied ways to combat what they view as the liberal, anti-Western bias of American higher education. Members of the Trump administration have focused on campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war as a reason to pull federal funding, accusing universities of failing to protect Jewish students.

By the time Hamas launched its deadly attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a group of Jewish Northwestern parents had already been in regular touch for a year about antisemitism concerns, after a student op-ed on Jewish pride was turned into an anti-Israel banner.

As campus protests and activism ramped up, the group mobilized, branding itself the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern.

The coalition watched in dismay as Northwestern’s administration struck an agreement last spring with pro-Palestinian protesters to end an encampment outside the library—a less combative gathering than those on campuses like Columbia and UCLA. The April 2024 pact, called the Agreement on Deering Meadow, promised to bring Palestinian faculty and undergraduates to Northwestern, build a new space for Muslim students and make campus investments more transparent.

Some heralded the pact as a model for avoiding law-enforcement clashes. “We were trying to find a different way to do it,” said Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, the chair of Northwestern’s religious studies department, who supported students in the encampment. “This is a learning experience for them.” Other universities soon cut their own deals.

Lisa Fields Lewis, a founder of the parent group, saw it as rewarding bad behavior. She organized a trip to Washington for students to meet with U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik and other members of Congress who had been focused on campus protests.

Soon after, the House committee that felled the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania demanded Northwestern President Michael Schill testify. Appearing alongside the leaders of UCLA and Rutgers in May 2024, Schill spoke of his ancestors who died in the Holocaust and defended the deal he struck to control the encampment.

“None of us were prepared for what we saw after Oct. 7, and you have my commitment that we will do what is necessary to combat antisemitism,” he testified.

The House committee later released a 325-page report on campus antisemitism, admonishing Northwestern throughout for conceding to the protesters and not disciplining students harshly enough. The university’s actions “demonstrated a gross neglect for their obligations to protect Jewish students,” wrote the committee, which has since scheduled a closed-door interview with Schill to take place in August.

University leaders acknowledged that campus policies weren’t strong enough in response to antisemitic incidents in the wake of Oct. 7, a Northwestern spokesman said, but they’ve since seen a significant decrease in antisemitism reports after updating their code of conduct and consistently enforcing violations. “There is no room for antisemitism or any form of identity-based hate or discrimination at Northwestern University,” he said.

Silverman, the chemist whose work led to the breakthrough Lyrica drug, has publicly supported the parent and alumni coalition’s efforts. He understands why the Trump administration is using federal funding cuts as a lever.

“It’s something I don’t want as a researcher, but I think something needs to be done to change the atmosphere,” Silverman said. He hopes it can lead to fixes in the short-term, because until then, “The scientists pay for it, and eventually then the U.S. people pay for it, because research isn’t getting done.”

Other scientists are more skeptical that the funding cuts are really about addressing antisemitism.

“What the protests on the undergraduate campus in Evanston have to do with cures for cancer or heart disease is continuing to elude me,” said Northwestern cardiologist Passman, who is Jewish.

What’s at stake

University scientists compete for and win grants from NIH and other agencies for projects they propose to study. Northwestern hasn’t received money from the NIH on approved grants since March 26, said Dr. Susan Quaggin, chair of the department of medicine at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Over 1,300 NIH grants have been affected, according to a university spokesperson.

The university received $516 million in research funding from NIH in fiscal year 2024.

“We’re looking at this cliff and wondering what will happen if they decide to stop funding,” Quaggin said.

Some researchers at the university, like others elsewhere, are approaching philanthropies and companies to help cover costs. But federal grants are typically the single biggest source of research support, with other funds being more limited.

University leaders this month laid out new cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze, possible layoffs, and pullback in building upgrades. “We regret that the current period of uncertainty makes long-term planning exceedingly difficult,” Schill and other leaders wrote in a universitywide message, adding they are doing everything possible to restore federal funding.

At a Senate budget hearing this month, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin quizzed NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on the Northwestern grant freezes and the Trump administration’s proposal to cut the NIH budget by $18 billion, about 40%. “If research is under way, you at least have the hope that maybe there’ll be a cure, maybe in the lifetime of someone,” Durbin said. “How can you walk away from that?”

Bhattacharya said he hoped funding disruptions at affected universities would be resolved, but didn’t offer a timeline. He said he believed the decisions about Northwestern were made before he took his NIH position.

Matei, the oncologist who specializes in gynecological tumors, has a $5 million NIH grant supporting 69 cancer trials at Northwestern and partner institutions. These trials test treatments for various cancers, from melanoma to colon to pancreatic cancer and others. The NIH grant paid for research nurse salaries, clinical trial coordinators, and procedures like CT scans and biopsies that aren’t billed to insurance, Matei said. Since the freeze, university funds now cover these costs.

Trial participants include some patients with rare, incurable tumors who are undergoing experimental treatments matched to the genetics of their condition. “It’s certainly a life-and-death situation for cancer patients on these trials,” Matei said.

Passman’s $37 million grant is testing a novel approach to treating atrial fibrillation, a heart condition that affects about 10 million Americans. Bouts of irregular heart rhythm cause blood to pool in the organ’s chambers, seeding clots that can break away and trigger strokes in the brain. Standard treatment involves a lifetime of powerful blood thinners to reduce the stroke risk, but patients are at risk for bleeding.

Passman’s team is testing a novel algorithm that runs on an Apple Watch and warns the wearer when they’re experiencing a heart episode, so that they can take medication when they most need it. The trial has enrolled some 1,700 people at 85 sites so far and aims to include over 5,000 people.

Passman has talked to NIH program officers about his situation but said they didn’t tell him if or when funding would resume. If the university stops covering costs, and Passman fails to find backup funding, he expects to shut his trial down. Participants would go back to taking medicines, but it would waste years of work and millions of dollars to stop the project.

“We’re all devastated and scrambling to see if there’s a future,” he said. “We don’t know.”