I am writing this on January 24th. I just got out of a meeting at my place of employment. I work at a small research institute that is funded by government science grants from places like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

There is a lot of shaky fear going on right now in the scientific community. All because of Trump’s recent executive orders.

Trump’s few days in office have resulted in executive orders that involve things like canceling federal grant review panels and training workshops (SOURCE).

Why does this matter?

On a personal note: a grant application from my agency should have been reviewed this week, but has been postponed indefinitely.

On a more global note that everyone should care about: this means that important research projects that could help save human lives are not getting the funding needed.

Today I tried to go to a page on the NIH’s website that I’ve visited many times before (including just a couple days ago) that talks about the need to ensure diverse samples of research participants (so that we’re not just researching white men like research used to be before we started caring about this), and all I got was this:

Hoping it was just a fluke, I clicked a link I had in my notes for another similar page (that I’d also visited a couple days ago) and this time I got this:

A bit frantic now, I googled “NIH diversity” and found plenty of links, but each one ended in an error message similar to the ones above.

For the record: having diverse samples in research isn’t just a nice thing to do. It is critical to the lives of human beings. If we only research white men, we do not learn whether interventions/medicines/operations/etc work on anyone else. Without that information, human beings die. That is the reality that Trump is pushing on the scientific community.

NOTE: Trump issued a “communication ban” for NIH employees – meaning that program officers are not allowed to talk to potential grantees until February 1st. So, as researchers, we wait and see what this time in history does for the future of science.

During this waiting, we hope we’re being hyperbolic to worry that Trump’s decisions will have long term implications. But we also know that laws have lasting impacts on the lives of you and me and the people we love. 

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at this day in history: January 25th, 1900.

The story starts in the month leading up to January 25th. Christmas Eve 1899. Lots of people were traveling to see loved ones (just like Christmas Eve a month ago!). This time, a Black passenger in Virginia sat next to a white woman on a train. When asked to move, the Black passenger didn’t move. There was public outrage. The newspaper wrote “God Almighty drew the color line and it cannot be obliterated.” The white governor of Virginia expressed how much he hated riding on trains with Black individuals. And on this day in history (January 25th, 1900), the Viriginia Senate made their new year priorities clear when they unanimously passed a bill requiring separate cars for White individuals and Black individuals. That white governor had no problem signing it into law and it became one of the first state segregation laws (before the segregation of schools, boats, prisons, public halls). Other states were passing similar segregation laws which had all become legal in the federal ruling Plessy v. Ferguson just a few years earlier. That segregation continued for decades and there are still institutions that are systematically segregated and/or unequal. 

As a feminist, you need to care.

These issues impact everyone who experiences inequity. That includes Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities, women and girls, LGBTQIA+ children and adults, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. This matters! Being able to do science for all people (not just white men) matters. 

This January 25th, rather than sitting idly as Trump passes executive orders that can have lasting impacts on the future of human lives, let’s make change. Let’s listen to the voices of those who are being impacted every day. Then take a moment to think about what you can do in your sphere to make things better.

Not sure where to start? Here’s a list of texts/books/articles/essays that you can read this year that will help you understand how institutional racism operates in the US:

In the carceral system:

Recommended Book: Michelle Alexander’s book called The New Jim Crow. Here’s a sample quote: “It is no longer socially permissible to use race as a justification for discrimination, social contempt, and exclusion. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today, it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans — in employment, housing, voting, education, public benefits, and exclusion from jury service. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

Recommended personal narrative from someone impacted: “It’s been 22 years since my time in solitary and 8 years since my release from prison, but I still have flashbacks and nightmares. Even when I’m with someone else, I find myself secluded in my own mind. I call it being psychologically incarcerated. I’m learning to identify and deal with it, but I am still not normal.” – Kiana Calloway in his piece about being wrongfully convicted and sent to solitary confinement in Louisiana (you can read about him in his bio at his current employment)

In the education system:

Recommended article: Check out this article that summarizes some research suggesting that schools are often still segregated and those that are segregated tend to have worse outcomes. Here’s a sample quote: “When we allow our schools to remain segregated by race and economic status, we are systematically providing fewer educational opportunities to our most vulnerable students. That does not mean segregation is the sole cause of educational disparities, but it magnifies them.”

In the medical field:

Recommended special issue: Check out this AMA Journal of Ethics Special Issue. Here’s a sample quote in the intro: “Legally sanctioned racial segregation in hospitals ended with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with fiscally incentivized enforcement through Medicare payment structures implemented in 1966. Yet, practices such as sorting patients by insurance status still perpetuate de facto racial and class segregation, especially in academic health centers.”

Recommended article: Check out this article in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment where 79% of the 143 Black adults surveyed said they had experienced healthcare discrimination and that often led to a mistrust of the medical system. 

In Mormonism:

Recommended podcast: Listen to this short (4 minute) NPR story where James Jones (a Black member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) shares his story about being in the church with such a racist history and how that impacts him today. Consider also taking his anti-racism training that is targeted for members of the church. 

Recommended podcast: Listen to this podcast, “Achieving Zion: The Impact of Racism on Becoming One” where Dr. Mica McGill tells her story within the context of the large structural issues in the church and describes the impact of racism on the church. Quote from the podcast blurb: “Mormonism has uniquely benefitted from white-supremacy…White Mormons all along the spectrum of orthodoxy must reconcile with their history and mythologized racial innocence in order to truly become one with self and community.”

Please add more recommendations in the comments below!