The federal keyword lists that canceled billions in research funding
The federal keyword lists that canceled billions in research funding
导致数十亿美元研究经费被取消的联邦关键词列表
Soon after President Donald Trump retook office, researchers and academics across the country began receiving startling news. They were abruptly informed, often mid-project, that their federal grant funding had been terminated. Form letters bearing the news often offered few details beyond that their work no longer aligned with agency priorities.
在唐纳德·特朗普总统重新上任后不久，全国各地的研究人员和学者开始收到令人震惊的消息。他们被突然告知（通常是在项目进行到一半时），他们的联邦拨款已被终止。带有这一消息的格式化信函通常除了说明他们的工作不再符合机构优先事项外，几乎没有提供任何细节。
As part of a lawsuit filed by University of California researchers, a handful of federal agencies confirmed earlier this month in court documents that they cut grants if researchers’ projects “expressed, or were presumed to express, viewpoints disfavored by the Administration.” Those court documents offer insight into how the Trump administration undertook a swift campaign to revoke research funding for work related to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and other subjects at odds with its political agenda.
作为加州大学研究人员提起诉讼的一部分，少数联邦机构在本月初的法庭文件中证实，如果研究人员的项目“表达了或被推定表达了政府不赞成的观点”，他们就会削减拨款。这些法庭文件揭示了特朗普政府如何迅速开展行动，撤销与多元化、公平和包容性（DEI）工作以及其他与其政治议程相左的主题相关的研究经费。
Federal agencies relied heavily on keyword searches when terminating grants held by UC researchers, court documents revealed. While the searched terms varied across agencies, they focused on initiatives facing significant conservative opposition, such as DEI and green energy. The UC researchers allege the grant terminations violated their First Amendment rights by targeting their work based on viewpoint and subject matter and have asked the federal judge overseeing the case to rule the revocations unconstitutional.
法庭文件显示，联邦机构在终止加州大学研究人员的拨款时，严重依赖关键词搜索。虽然各机构搜索的术语各不相同，但它们都集中在面临重大保守派反对的倡议上，例如 DEI 和绿色能源。加州大学的研究人员指控称，这些拨款终止行为基于观点和主题针对他们的工作，侵犯了他们的第一修正案权利，并已要求负责此案的联邦法官裁定这些撤销行为违宪。
The keyword lists used by four of the federal agencies named in the UC lawsuit — the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Endowment for the Humanities — elucidate the wide net cast by the Trump administration when targeting grants.
加州大学诉讼中提到的四个联邦机构——美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）、美国国家科学基金会（NSF）、美国国防部和美国国家人文基金会（NEH）——所使用的关键词列表，阐明了特朗普政府在针对拨款时所撒下的“大网”。
Of the four agencies, NSF used the most keywords by far. It told the court it pulled its search terms list directly from a 2024 report released by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, which alleged the Biden administration had politicized science at the agency. NSF also mentioned, but did not list, terms related to misinformation. The report shared hundreds of terms it used to screen grants to determine whether they were related to DEI or promoted “neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle.” The list included “injustice,” “ally,” “prejudice,” “institutional,” “discrimination,” “historically,” “minority,” and “traumatic.”
在这四个机构中，NSF 使用的关键词数量最多。它告诉法庭，其搜索词列表直接取自德克萨斯州参议员泰德·克鲁兹（Ted Cruz）于 2024 年发布的一份报告，该报告指控拜登政府将该机构的科学研究政治化。NSF 还提到了与错误信息相关的术语，但未列出具体内容。该报告分享了数百个用于筛选拨款的术语，以确定它们是否与 DEI 相关，或是否宣扬了“关于持久阶级斗争的新马克思主义观点”。该列表包括“不公正”、“盟友”、“偏见”、“制度性”、“歧视”、“历史性”、“少数群体”和“创伤性”。
NIH worked off of a shorter but similar list, which included “workforce diversity” and “health equity.” The agency noted that it also used “various permutations” of each keyword. While the Defense Department terminated grants using similar terms — such as “pay equity,” “LGBTQ,” and “neurodiversity” — it also sought to cut funding for projects related to climate change and green energy. Grants that referenced alternative energy sources such as solar, wind or geothermal energy were targeted for termination, as were those that used terms like “climate change,” “carbon neutrality,” “decarbonization,” “pollution control,” “air quality management” or “federal sustainability,” the department said in court documents.
NIH 使用了一份更短但类似的列表，其中包括“劳动力多元化”和“健康公平”。该机构指出，它还使用了每个关键词的“各种变体”。虽然国防部使用类似的术语（如“薪酬公平”、“LGBTQ”和“神经多样性”）终止了拨款，但它也试图削减与气候变化和绿色能源相关项目的资金。国防部在法庭文件中表示，提及太阳能、风能或地热能等替代能源的拨款被列为终止目标，使用“气候变化”、“碳中和”、“脱碳”、“污染控制”、“空气质量管理”或“联邦可持续性”等术语的项目也同样被针对。
Those four agencies told the court they used their keyword lists and avoided assessing each grant individually, instead identifying awards to cancel “using general criteria.” NSF provided a list of the grants held by UC researchers that it cut using this method but did not tie specific search terms to each terminated grant. NEH similarly provided the court with a list of grants revoked based on keywords including “environmental justice” and “transgenderism,” along with “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and its variants.
这四个机构告诉法庭，他们使用关键词列表，避免对每项拨款进行单独评估，而是“使用一般标准”来确定要取消的资助。NSF 提供了一份通过这种方法削减的加州大学研究人员拨款清单，但并未将具体的搜索词与每项被终止的拨款挂钩。NEH 同样向法庭提供了一份基于关键词（包括“环境正义”和“跨性别主义”，以及“多元化、公平和包容性”及其变体）撤销的拨款清单。
NIH, however, did tie specific terms to cancellations in some cases. NIH cut at least $2.6M in grant funding for projects using the phrase “structural racism.” One project at the University of California, San Francisco sought to study how racism affected the mental health of adolescents and young adults who had contact with the legal system, as well as racism’s impacts on substance abuse. Another, at the University of California, Los Angeles, focused on gestational diabetes among Asian Americans. Both were canceled by NIH — the former was flagged for using the phrase “structural racism,” and the latter for “health equality.”
然而，NIH 在某些情况下确实将特定术语与取消拨款挂钩。NIH 至少削减了 260 万美元用于使用“结构性种族主义”一词的项目的拨款。加州大学旧金山分校的一个项目旨在研究种族主义如何影响与法律系统有接触的青少年和年轻人的心理健康，以及种族主义对药物滥用的影响。加州大学洛杉矶分校的另一个项目则关注亚裔美国人的妊娠期糖尿病。这两个项目都被 NIH 取消了——前者因使用“结构性种族主义”一词被标记，后者则因使用“健康平等”一词被标记。
Dozens of additional projects saw their NIH grants canceled not because they used certain phrases but because they had diversity supplements — additional funding awarded by the agency that aims to boost support for researchers from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds. UC researchers have won two preliminary injunctions in their case, which blocked grant terminations made via form letters across several federal agencies. NIH told the court it specifically targeted grants awarded to researchers affiliated with UC’s 10 campuses. In one example, the agency suspended over $500 million in funding to the University of California, Los Angeles — funding that has since been ordered restored.
还有数十个项目被 NIH 取消了拨款，原因不是因为它们使用了某些短语，而是因为它们拥有“多元化补充资金”——这是该机构授予的额外资金，旨在加强对来自代表性不足和弱势背景研究人员的支持。加州大学的研究人员在诉讼中赢得了两项初步禁令，阻止了多个联邦机构通过格式化信函进行的拨款终止行为。NIH 告诉法庭，它专门针对授予加州大学 10 个校区附属研究人员的拨款。在一个例子中，该机构暂停了向加州大学洛杉矶分校提供的超过 5 亿美元的资金，而这笔资金后来已被下令恢复。