loading . . . In a warning from inside the NSF, staff say science itself is under threat Interview transcript:
Terry Gerton Let’s first start with the letter. One hundred and forty-nine National Science Foundation employees signed it, many anonymously. What’s happening that motivated them to write this letter right now?
Dr. Jesus Soriano Since the 1950s, NSF has been a jewel of the government, investing in critical areas of science, ensuring that that discovery becomes products and services that have given the United States technological and economic leadership. We cannot say anymore NSF is the jewel of government. We should start saying NSF was the jewel of the government. Since January 21, the National Science Foundation is being systematically dismantled.
Terry Gerton And so what do employees risk by signing this letter?
Dr. Jesus Soriano In this environment where the administration has openly stated that they want federal employees to be traumatized, and after all the steps they’ve taken to push employees out of the door, either voluntarily through Forks and DRPs or involuntarily through RIFs and other means, the morale is down the drain. And we have a job to do, a job that Congress has mandated through many statutes. And in these conditions, the work cannot be done.
Terry Gerton So there’s some pretty strong words in this letter. It accuses the administration of using, and I quote, ‘a covert ideologically driven review process to cancel over 1,600 grants.’ Those are fighting words. Tell us why you chose to be so strong in the letter and what this practice is looking like on the ground at NSF.
Dr. Jesus Soriano We are not being strong, we are being objective, describing the situation as it is. The merit review process has been enshrined in law since the 1950s and in consecutive acts of law, for example, the CHIPS and Science Act or the America COMPETES Act. The merit review process ensures that the best projects and the brightest people receive funding, after a very, very thorough and fair review process, which is devoid of politics, it’s devoid of conflict of interest. It’s about finding the best science, the best engineering, the best startups companies. So when you disturb that process, and also our ability to oversee the grants that have been given so the federal dollars are not wasted. When you overlay that process with, okay, your proposal has the word woman. Your proposal has the word Latino, Black, or the word weather. That proposal has to be flagged. And it may be returned without review. Or it has to mitigated because it has a problem. That type of process is not what NSF has been doing for 75 years.
Terry Gerton So how is the review process actually working now compared to how you think it should be operating?
Dr. Jesus Soriano Well, we are apolitical civil servants. We follow orders. And we are very serious about how we do it. So although most of those words that have to be flagged came from a congressional report by Senator Cruz, and those words, that compilation of terms, are not necessarily scientific, we have created a process where those proposals get flagged or those awards get flaged, and then we need to look at the context. For example, if a proposal has the word woman, is this proposal just about women? Or it just says that maybe there’s a female professional? Or what is the context? Basically, what the administration is trying to do at NSF is, if in any way, a group is given a favor because of their protected class or characteristics, and at the same time, another group is being, quote, quote ‘discriminated.’ Then that project cannot flag. But this is a reversal of the classic reading of discrimination laws.
Terry Gerton Is this reshaping the kind of science that NSF can support? Are there particular topics, you use some words there, but are there research topics that are being more impacted than others?
Dr. Jesus Soriano Yes, absolutely. Whether it is in any field of science or engineering, there is now a lot of self-censure. So scientists are writing in a way that it doesn’t risk being turned away. And many topics are not being addressed. Whether it is in chemistry or in physics or in astronomy or choose your field. If the National Science Foundation and the program officers who do this work cannot objectively determine which projects are the most meritorious and fund them accordingly, the merit review process is actually a victim of a political intervention.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Dr. Jesus Soriano. He’s president of AFGE Local 3403, representing employees at the National Science Foundation. So we now have this letter from NSF employees. We’ve had similar sorts of letters from employees at the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency. Are they all part of a similar storyline? Tell us what’s going on kind of across scientific agencies.
Dr. Jesus Soriano And there are many more letters to come from other agencies. Why? Because civil servants, federal scientists, or administrators in these scientific agencies have made an oath of office and oath to the Constitution. We’re here not to make money. We’re here not to take bubble baths. We’re to work extremely hard for the public. We are mission-oriented. So when we see our mission being disrupted, whether you are at the EPA, the NIH, the NSF, or other places, it is our obligation, our moral duty, to raise the alarm.
Terry Gerton So this National Science Foundation letter was sent to members of Congress. What are you hearing in response?
Dr. Jesus Soriano We’ve been surprised by the attention that this letter has received. It was not a letter sent openly where people signed their names, because as we have seen at the Environmental Protection Agency, employees have been retaliated upon. So we used a different strategy. We decided to write to Congress, to the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
Terry Gerton You approached it as a whistleblower complaint. Tell us about how that informed your strategy.
Dr. Jesus Soriano Our objective was to tell the American public what’s happening at the National Science Foundation, why this jewel of the government is being dismantled, why it should concern them, because this agency, like many others, is there to serve them. However, when the union evaluated the risks, we determined that allowing the employees to just put their names out there, although it’s commendable and valiant, it was a risk we didn’t want to take for them. So we used a process to collect the signatures, document things, and then employees were either decided to be anonymous or we redacted the names, leaving only the union president’s name there.
Terry Gerton And so if you take this letter and about a 30% reduction in NSF staff already, discussion about relocating the National Science Foundation, what is the sense of where this is all going?
Dr. Jesus Soriano People speak always about employee morale. What we are asking ourselves now, the employees and the union, is what else would you do to dismantle the National Science Foundation? If you speak about the building, we have a building that was customized for the National Science Foundation, which means that millions of taxpayer dollars were used to help the business processes that we follow. The union AFGE Local 3403 is not for wasting money. We are not for empty buildings. We welcome anybody. We would love all the buildings in the federal government to be used at 100% capacity. However, when somebody comes and says, hey, we are kicking you out of here, go somewhere else. There has been no planning. There has been no appropriation of funds, et cetera. Oh, by the way, you’re getting out of here, but we don’t know where. It is not that we want to keep that building at any cost. It’s that we use the customizations in that building to do our work. And even if the building didn’t require any customization, you cannot just disturb people who have been pushed to come from faraway places. They were hired remote during the pandemic. Then they were forced to come here or lose their jobs, and then we’re going to go somewhere. And somewhere, we don’t know where that is.
Terry Gerton So what do you think will happen next? You’ve sent the letter to Congress, it’s getting press, major concerns clear. Are you expecting oversight hearings, other sorts of congressional action maybe on the behalf of the workforce at NSF?
Dr. Jesus Soriano It is up to Congress to decide what they will do under their own authority, but we also wanted to inform the public. Our union is just not about the workers. Our union is also about the mission of the National Science Foundation and about the communities we serve, whether you are a student, an entrepreneur, a professor, a scientist, these are the people we serve. So we fight for employees as we fight for the mission of our agency in the same way, and we hope that through this communication, people will advocate, call their congressmen, people should keep their elected leaders accountable.The post In a warning from inside the NSF, staff say science itself is under threat first appeared on Federal News Network. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/08/in-a-warning-from-inside-the-nsf-staff-say-science-itself-is-under-threat/
