Update. "US conference boycott urged after French scientist deported"
https://archive.is/Wxwdg

"Academics say they are increasingly wary of travelling to conferences in the US after a French scientist was deported over text messages critical of Donald #Trump’s cuts to research funding … Space scientist Mark Wieczorek [@mrak], director of research at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, part of CNRS, said the situation was “very troubling” and, despite being a dual US-French citizen, he now would “only go to the US for the case of a family emergency”…Given the French scientist in question is a “permanent researcher employed by CNRS”, it is “unlikely that this person is a radicalised terrorist and it is unlikely that their hatred of Trump is greater than mine as a US citizen,” continued Wieczorek."

Update. "US anti-terror legislation must not be weaponised against libraries"
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/us-anti-terror-legislation-must-not-be-weaponised-against-libraries

"Scholars have attempted to safeguard their work by turning to sites deemed to be beyond the reach of the US government…However, even these safe havens may be at risk if a seemingly innocuous tax bill completes its course through Congress. H.R. 9495, the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act”, was passed by the US House of Representatives in November 2024 and is currently before the Senate. It proposes…to strip non-profit status from organisations deemed to be “supporting terrorism”. But its broad language, lack of evidentiary requirements, and potential for political weaponisation should send a chill down the spines of all higher education professionals. After all, who is to define terrorism? History is filled with examples of liberation movements and resistance groups initially labelled 'terrorists' by powerful states. And who is to define 'support'?"

Update. From @kfitz: "Digital Preservation in a Time of Disorder"
https://about.hcommons.org/2025/03/19/digital-preservation-in-a-time-of-disorder/

"#KnowledgeCommons has applied for a significant grant from Lever for Change to build, implement, and sustain a digital preservation network that will be free from the US government’s, and any other single government’s, interference…KC is a #nonprofit, community-governed, #OpenAccess platform for creating and sharing knowledge world-wide…But, in the present moment, our US-centeredness is a significant threat to that mission. We propose to establish three linked but independent nonprofit public-benefit companies incorporated in the US, Europe, and South Africa, all dedicated to the social and technological processes of gathering, preserving, and ensuring the public accessibility of academic research."

Update. "SAFE-Track: Secure Anonymous Federal Evidence, Data and Analysis Tracking"
https://datafoundation.org/pages/safetrack

"The Data Foundation's SAFE-Track portal provides a secure, encrypted channel for documenting changes to federal evidence and #data activities. As a trusted, non-partisan authority on government data and evidence policy, the #DataFoundation maintains this platform to systematically understand and analyze impacts on America's evidence infrastructure…SAFE-Track enables confidential reporting through:
* Complete #anonymity for submissions
* End-to-end #encryption of all data
* No requirement for email or personal identification
* Option for secure follow-up communication through anonymous conversation codes
* Protections against collection of personally identifiable information."

@Nonilex This is why we must continuing #resisting and say #nocensorship! Please join the 3000+ individuals & organizations taking a public stand against #censorship by signing the Declaration to #DefendResearch Against U.S. Gov Censorship! Add your name and make your voice heard! #NoTimeForSilence #resist https://tinyurl.com/3bwuc38f

Update. "#Trump Executive Order Targets #IMLS for Closure"
https://www.wordsandmoney.com/trump-executive-order-targets-imls-for-closure/

"In a March 14 Executive Order, President Donald Trump has targeted seven more federal agencies for permanent closure, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

If some parts of IMLS are "statutorily required" and cannot be shut down by an executive order, the #OMB has seven days to show it.

"EveryLibrary is hosting a petition [to keep IMLS open]…The American Library Association has…weighed in with a statement."

Update. Good advice from #MichaelIgnatieff, past President of the Central European University in Budapest and Vienna (2016-2021): "How a University Fights an Authoritarian Regime. Viktor #Orbán came for me. Donald #Trump is coming for you. Here’s what to do."
https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-a-university-fights-an-authoritarian-regime
(#paywalled)

"You’re going to need an alliance that pulls together American families, employers, unions, companies, the whole network of people and institutions beyond your campus who understand that the universities of America are critical to everything that is good about the country: its commitment to freedom, its devotion to excellence, its leadership in science and medicine. This alliance is going to have to get political — to reach across red state and blue state, identify the members of Congress from both sides of the House who understand why universities matter to their communities, to the American economy, and to America’s deserved reputation for excellence. Don’t mince words. It’s too late to play nice. Call a spade a spade. Convince enough Americans that the administration’s strategy deserves only one name: vandalism."

#Academia #DefendResearch #Universities #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

Update. "The Data Hoarders Resisting Trump’s Purge. Can #librarians and guerrilla archivists save the country’s files from #DOGE.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-data-hoarders-resisting-trumps-purge
(#paywalled)

"Lynda Kellam, a social scientist and data librarian,…who’s served in leadership positions at two Ivy League universities, described the vulnerable data as “irreplaceable.”…Kellam told me that she’d participated in a small data-preservation effort during Trump’s first term, but had never seen anything like the frenzy that ignited in late January, when the #CDC began removing information from its website. Kellam was encouraged, but worried about a lack of coördination. What if the backups languished on private hard drives? What if archivists duplicated one another’s work? She created a Google Doc to centralize information about preëxisting initiatives—an archive of archives, with detailed instructions on how to contribute to each…Kellam met with the heads of other data-librarian organizations, and together they founded the #DataRescueProject."

Update. Survey of US #librarians and #LIS faculty.
https://coloradomesa.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9GjMQWWDpB5zDDg

"Recent weeks and months have brought shifts to the pursuit of research across the United States, including funding freezes and budget cuts, executive orders regarding DEIA (and its variants) and other justice-related topics (e.g., environmental justice)…This survey aims to gather the perspectives of academic librarians and LIS-program faculty about the implications of these shifts (and executive orders) on research initiatives and, more broadly, academic freedom, researchers' freedom of thought/speech/expression within academia, and researchers' overall intellectual freedom."

Update. "#APDU [Association of Public Data Users] Statement on #Education Research and #Data"
https://apdu.org/?p=5812775

"On Tuesday, March 11, 2025, over 1,000 staff from the Department of Education [#DOE] were laid off. This includes almost all staff from the Institute of Education Sciences (#IES), which housed the National Center for Education Statistics (#NCES)…NCES is mandated by law to report on the condition of education annually, collect and disseminate key education data, and support state and local education agencies…The [layoffs] make it unclear how NCES will meet its legal obligations under the Education Sciences Reform Act, Every Student Succeeds Act, the Information Quality Act, and other federal laws…Congress and policymakers must act to ensure NCES has the resources to meet its statutory obligations. Stakeholders—including researchers, educators, and state leaders—must demand transparency on how education data will be maintained."

Update. "Joint Statement on Federal Censorship of American History"
https://www.historians.org/news/aha-oah-joint-statement-on-federal-censorship-of-american-history/

"The American Historical Association (#AHA) and the Organization of American Historians (#OAH) condemn recent efforts to censor historical content on federal government websites, at many public museums, and across a wide swath of government resources…Policies that purge words, phrases, and content that some officials deem suspect on ideological grounds constitute a systemic campaign to distort, manipulate, and erase significant parts of the historical record. Recent directives insidiously prioritize narrow ideology over historical research, historical accuracy, and the actual experiences of Americans.

As the institution chartered by the US Congress for “the promotion of historical studies” and “in the interest of American history, and of history in America,” the American Historical Association must speak out when the nation’s leadership wreaks havoc with that history. So, too, must the OAH, as the organization committed to promoting “excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history.” It is bad enough to forget the past; it is even worse to intentionally deny the public access to what we remember, have documented, and have expended public resources to disseminate."

"To date, 11 organizations have signed on to the statement."

Update. "A Call for Harm Reduction Strategies"
https://katinamagazine.org/content/article/open-knowledge/2025/a-call-for-harm-reduction-strategies

"The new US presidential administration has launched an unprecedented assault on research and higher education. This isn’t just collateral damage from wide-ranging realignment of budgets, which would be bad enough, but an orchestrated attack on academic freedom, research funding, and the institutional autonomy that underpins intellectual progress…Resistance is most effective when collective action amplifies individual efforts rather than occurring in isolation. This means fostering more frequent and open dialogue across all sectors of the academic and research community [e.g. #libraries and #publishers]."

Update. "US Funding Cuts Imperil Open Infrastructure Globally"
https://katinamagazine.org/content/article/open-knowledge/2025/US-funding-cuts-imperil-open-infrastructure-globally

"The impacts of funding cuts to research in the US extend far beyond their immediate targets. We see a chain reaction that could indelibly alter the education and research landscape, including the future of open and sustainable research…So what is there to do?… Here are our three specific calls to action…"

Update. It's not enough for #Trump to …

* nominate #climate denialists to run key agencies like the #EPA and #NOAA
* remove climate-related words from govt web sites
* take down whole climate science sites and datasets
* defund climate research and researchers
* layoff scientists and civil servants with climate expertise
* repeal climate regulations
* eliminate 10 regional EPA offices, including the one in DC
* and plan to replace consensus climate findings with ideological cherrypicking as the foundation for policymaking …

… now his #FBI is freezing the assets of nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity, which have received EPA grants, alleging that they might be guilty of “possible criminal violations” including “conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/192660/trump-fbi-charge-climate-organizations

Update. "Strong Scientific Leaders Must Speak Out against the Trump Administration’s Science Denial"
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strong-scientific-leaders-must-speak-out-against-the-trump-administrations/

"We are proud to be members of the #NAS [National Academy of Sciences], but we are not proud of its present inaction. In these challenging and defining times, the National Academy of Sciences, of all scientific institutions, must speak up…The new #Trump administration is now making an unprecedented effort to prevent science from informing public policy. In his first day in office, President Trump signed executive orders withdrawing the U.S. from participation in the Paris Agreement on #climate change and from the World Health Organization [#WHO]. The new administration has subsequently acted to drastically limit support for climate and medical research performed by scientists in the federal government and in universities. In this emergency, it is not enough for the National Academy of Sciences to speak up from its grass roots, as in 2016 or 2018. It must now speak as an institution if it is to fulfill its responsibilities to the nation and maintain its relevance in the future."

Update. "#Trump’s next #climate move: Show global warming benefits humanity"
https://www.eenews.net/articles/trumps-next-climate-move-show-global-warming-benefits-humanity/

"President Donald Trump has long rejected climate science. Now, his administration is grappling with how to assemble a body of federal climate research to show a warming world is benefiting humanity…Proposals include…conducting a hostile review of U.S. and international climate reports, and recruiting a White House-approved list of researchers to produce a National Climate Assessment based on partisan research and industry studies."

Update. "US science rues ongoing demotion of research under President Trump"
https://physicsworld.com/a/us-science-rues-ongoing-demotion-of-research-under-president-trump/

"In his first cabinet meeting on 26 February, #Trump suggested that officials “use scalpels” when trimming their departments’ spending and personnel – rather than #Musk’s figurative chainsaw. But bosses at the Environmental Protection Agency (#EPA) still plan to cut its budget by about two-thirds…The White House’s attack on #climate science goes beyond just the EPA. In January, the US Department of #Agriculture removed almost all data on climate change from its website…The Trump administration has also barred #NASA’s now former chief scientist Katherine Calvin and members of the State Department from travelling to China for a planning meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Meanwhile, in a speech to African energy ministers in Washington on 7 March, US energy secretary Chris Wright claimed that coal has “transformed our world and made it better”, adding that climate change, while real, is not on his list of the world’s top 10 problems."

Update. Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (#NASEM), talks about defending US science under #Trump.
https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2025/03/america-cant-be-great-without-great-science-that-is-where-the-academies-can-help?mc_cid=7d33d921dd&mc_eid=20aa62cccc

"First of all, we are working to reach officials in the administration who will be sensitive to the likely impacts of [their] actions on the health, security, economic opportunity, and well-being of all Americans. Second, we are using the contacts here at the Academies and among our members to directly appeal to other individuals who may share some of the administration’s goals. We are working with them to demonstrate how the scientific evidence base suggests some of the tactics the administration is taking now may not lead to the goals that they want to accomplish…The mantra of this administration is, of course, to make America great. Well, science has been a big part of what has made America great, and America can’t be great without great science…For example, we are doing a fast-track study on reducing red tape for researchers that should be useful to the new administration. It could dramatically increase the efficiency of federally supported science…I really encourage members to talk to their members of Congress; as their constituents, they have more impact."

Update. #ActionLab is a #crowdsourced collection of practical actions "for the various issues scientists are facing in the wake of destructive anti-science policies. Filter our database by action type, by location, by deadline, or by the amount of time you have to spend today. Find a way to act that is right for you."
https://airtable.com/apppMymixtqx3yqxa/shrpqNUa2cLF4gjwh

Here's the gallery view of the 27 actions posted to date.
https://airtable.com/apppMymixtqx3yqxa/shrDtqn83Zrm3KWVH