UK researchers lose grant cash over Trump’s anti-DEI purge

British academics specialising in American studies have been stripped of research funds after organisers of a US Embassy-backed grant scheme refused to drop their diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies.

The defunding of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS) and US Embassy small grants programme, which offers up to £10,000 for cultural, educational and outreach activities in American studies, comes after Donald Trump issued an executive order on 20 January to stop what he called “radical and wasteful government DEI programmes and preferencing”.

That directive has led some of America’s largest research funders to pause grant approval to ensure new awards comply with the presidential directive, but it also led London’s US Embassy to pause its £200,000 support for the small grants scheme it runs with BAAS.

It meant BAAS was forced to suspend its latest round of grants – including withholding monies promised to grant winners in mid-January – which are designed to support projects that “foster the academic and cultural special relationship between the UK and US”.

The association, which publishes The Journal of American Studies, has now confirmed the grants programme has been cancelled owing to a clash over diversity policies attached to the scheme, which has run since 2016.

In a statement issued on 9 February, it explains how “contacts in the US embassy here in London approached BAAS and asked them to amend some of the small grant programme’s criteria and ‘to remove any goals relating to equality, diversity or inclusion’.”

“Failure by BAAS to do so would see the programme cancelled,” it says.

However, the society continues that “BAAS is resolutely committed to EDI practices and policies now embedded into UK academia, and the central committee are not prepared to concede on these grounds”.

“So the grant programme is now fully cancelled effective immediately,” it concludes.

In the society’s equality and diversity statement, adopted in 2017, it states the “BAAS is committed to fostering, cultivating and preserving a culture of diversity and inclusion”.

“We accept diversity and equity in our organisational structures as valuable and consequential,” it adds.

One American studies academic told Times Higher Education that the cancellation of the scheme highlighted how “US embassies abroad are also being impacted by events in Washington”.

“This is critical research and outreach on American studies in the UK that is being curtailed as a result,” said the professor, who did not want to be identified.

“Hundreds of thousands of pounds of grant money has gone to schemes and proposals through the US Embassy/BAAS programme over the last few years – and overnight it has had the legs pulled out from under it due to the new administration's policies.”

While the scheme’s overall value may not be enormous, its cancellation was worrying given the importance of the “ability to keep doing academic research in the US and [that supporting] the wider American studies networks in the UK is critical”, the scholar said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com