Several UUSM members joined hundreds of scientific researchers in front of the Federal Building on Wilshire to Stand Up for Science on March 7. UUSM folks participating included Jennifer Silvers, Jason Buhle, Siobhan Braybrook, Shanna Shaked, and Alison Kendall.
Jennifer Silvers, UCLA professor of psychology, was one of the speakers at the event. A video of her speech is below. She observed the dramatic cuts in funding, elimination of diversity initiatives and other federal censorship with alarm, noting —
“Multiple close colleagues at different institutions around the country have had all federal funding canceled for their labs in the last week which effectively means their labs are shut down now. The first federal funding mechanisms to be canceled were the ones that supported diversity initiatives, which primarily support graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are very early in their career. Second, they came for any mechanisms that support graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Third, they started canceling large grants that fund entire labs. Many, if not most, academic institutions are veering rapidly towards hiring freezes and there are reported massive layoffs coming. To be clear, we’re seeing a very intentional assault on science, higher education and more broadly, critical thinking. I don’t know how widely understood this threat is to the general public but if you look across history, when you see a government attack the press, the arts, and education structures — all while specifically demonizing and demeaning specific minoritized groups — it doesn’t end well…”
The group of about 500 “mad scientists” included researchers from UCLA, USC, Occidental, UC Santa Barbara, Cal State and other campuses, and recently laid off federal employees involved in managing research grants in fields from neuroscience, cancer research, climate change and other fields. They stretched for a block along Wilshire Blvd. and attracted many honks of approval from passing motorists.
