Since April, due to Trump administration funding cuts, Western Washington University associate professor Caroline Hardin has been completing her research without pay.
The National Science Foundation, or NSF, recently changed its diversity equity and inclusion policy. This change led to four Western grants, totaling $3.1 million, being cut.
Among them, associate professer Caroline Hardin’s project examines the lack of diversity in K-12 computer science teachers across the Pacific Northwest. In researching this problem, Hardin’s team conducted interviews with computer science teachers across the state to assess which approaches are working. Most of the grant money went to paying graduate students.
‘United States citizens paid for us to figure this out …
so we did it, and we can’t tell the American public
about it because … we’ve been cut off.’
“The United States citizens paid for us to figure this out,” she said. “So we did it, and we can’t tell the American public about it because for the time it takes to finish up the paper and get it approved, no one is being paid to do that anymore. We’ve been cut off.”
In October 2023, the NSF, after peer and programmatic review, allotted $231,554 to Hardin’s two-and-a-half-year project. As of May 2025, she had spent $142,000. She lost roughly $90,000 when the closure went into effect.
“We need diverse computer science teachers,” she said. “We need teachers from rural areas, we need more women teachers, we need more teachers of color, we need more teachers that represent the communities they come from.”
Broken student contracts
One of Hardin’s biggest concerns is her students. The grant money from the NSF went to paying graduate students working on the project.
“I’m trying to protect our students, make sure they can eat. These were jobs they signed contracts for,” Hardin said. “They didn’t do anything wrong. They don’t deserve to be fired. They aren’t getting any severance. It’s not fair to them.”
In an email, Lindsey Frallic, the Director of Research and Sponsored Programs at Western, wrote that the university would only retain students employed by the grants through the end of the 2025 spring quarter.
According to Frallic, other planned expenses associated with the research, such as faculty salaries, postdoc salaries, student employment opportunities in the upcoming academic years and contracts associated with the work will no longer take place.
On top of the financial aspect, Hardin said she has been frustrated with the NSF’s communication surrounding the process. “It’s been incredibly chaotic, unprofessional,” she said.
“I’m literally having to go to Reddit to try to find rumors from people who work in the federal government,” she said. “I am going to Google News. I have the tab open right now; NSF, last seven days.”
On April 18, the NSF updated its priorities in the following statement on its website:
“NSF’s broadening participation activities, including activities undertaken in fulfillment of the Broader Impacts criterion and research on broadening participation, must aim to create opportunities for all Americans everywhere. These efforts should not preference some groups at the expense of others or directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups. Research projects with more narrow impact, limited to subgroups of people based on protected class or characteristics, do not effectuate NSF priorities.”
Hardin believes that this language from the NSF is in direct contradiction to what her project stands for. Most computer science teachers are white men, and her project aims to include all Americans.
‘It took decades to build, and it’s
going to take a long time to mourn.’
“We need to go to people who are being excluded, and the NSF is now saying you’re not allowed to do that,” Hardin said. “You can’t figure out how to reach all Americans if you’re forbidden from reaching out to the Americans who aren’t included.”
To many researchers, it has felt like these actions from the federal administration will cause irreparable damage to America’s research capabilities and institutions.
Lost advantage
Sura Alqudah is the engineering and design department chair at Western and a current NSF grant holder.
“It’s like this country is going back 50 years at a time with each one of these decisions,” Alqudah said. “All of the innovation and the research, which makes the U.S. different on this frontier, is being dismantled, and it is scary.”
Hardin argued that for decades, the United States has had an advantage in scientific research because of programs like hers, and the last few months of grant closures has been so abrupt and disruptive, that this advantage is unraveling.
“The scientific edge that America had is lost. I don’t know how we’ll ever regain the trust for people to go into science, and for people to come here for science,” she said. “It’s devastating, and I can’t think of anything that’s more shooting yourself in the foot as a country.”
Hardin’s project is now in limbo. Her team has years of work and no way to get paid to publish their findings. She believes their team will be able to complete 20% of what they could have accomplished.
Despite this, Hardin is committed to completing the project.
“I will want to get this out there, but I don’t know how soon I’ll be able to. Now I’m down to spending my free time working for free in the summer when the kids are in bed to try and get this out there because I believe in the research,” she said.
Not backing down
Washington’s attorney general has filed multiple lawsuits in this arena, and others across the country are fighting back against the federal administration’s actions. In June, a California judge ruled in favor of researchers, something Hardin says she is “cautiously optimistic” about.
Also in June, a federal judge ordered that the National Institute of Health, another research funding organization, restore all of its grants canceled under the pretext of gender ideology or diversity equity and inclusion. The decision marks a decisive victory against the federal administration’s policy, and an optimistic precedent for grants like Hardin’s.
“I’m encouraged that people are fighting, but the whole thing is just depressing,” she said. “It took decades to build, and it’s going to take a long time to mourn.”
— By Liam Walsh
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• “Environmental nonprofit aims to recoup after funding cut,” May 2, 2025
• “Libraries rethink funding strategies after federal cuts,” April 29, 2025
• “Looming federal health care funding cuts threaten vulnerable locals,” April 16, 2025
• “School districts push back against threats to cut federal funding,” March 4, 2025