[By Guancha Observer, Shao Yun]

From drastically cutting federal scientific research funding, threatening to freeze university funds on the pretext of "fighting campus anti-Semitism", to arbitrarily revoking student visas, US President Donald Trump's "three-pronged approach" has put the scientific community on edge. According to a report by Business Insider website on April 18, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned that if Trump continues this approach, it may lead to the US losing its technological innovation competition with China.

The report criticized that the Trump administration is "wrongly attacking science" by cutting scientific research funds. "If the government has an issue with individual scientists or specific scientific research, that's fine; but now it seems like a comprehensive attack on all of American science," Schmidt said.

In Schmidt's view, this "madness" will eventually end because it is simply "too foolish." However, even if Washington corrects its course, the damage has already been done. "I hope everyone understands that these damages are real," Schmidt said. "We are facing a China that is investing trillions of dollars in this area, while we are messing up and not providing funding for those who should be inventing our future."

On April 10 local time, Schmidt (left) spoke at the "Artificial Intelligence + Biotechnology Summit" hosted by SCSP. SCSP video.

Schmidt made the above remarks at the "Artificial Intelligence + Biotechnology Summit" co-hosted by the National Security Council on Emerging Biotechnologies (NSCEB) of the US Congress and the non-partisan think tank "Special Competition Studies Project" (SCSP). SCSP aims to advise the US government on how to "win" in the technology war with China. Schmidt is one of its founders.

Schmidt emphasized that America's leading position in scientific innovation was built on a long-term tripartite cooperation model among the government, universities, and capital - the government funds basic support for research, universities conduct research and produce results, venture capitalists commercialize the results, and the government provides market support. But now, Trump's administration is breaking this "unspoken agreement."

"If you think this sounds like I'm supporting the Democratic Party, please allow me to remind you that the highly successful hydraulic fracturing technology (fracking) in the United States - which has made the US energy independent and the largest oil and gas exporter - also followed the same path," Schmidt said.

Schmidt said he knows some tech talents who were working and living in the US but are planning to move back to the UK due to the deteriorating research environment under Trump's administration. He also said that many US universities are in a "hiring freeze" state because the school administrations are "very afraid of this administration that seems to deliberately withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in funding."

Business Insider pointed out that since taking office in January, the Trump administration has tightened immigration policies, cut government research funds, reduced employees and budgets for NASA and NOAA, and cracked down on universities' "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) projects and pro-Palestinian protest activities.

According to a report on Nature's website on April 17, many scientists still employed by US government agencies admitted that Trump's spending cuts have made their work unsustainable. At the National Institutes of Health (NIH), laboratories cannot even buy basic supplies such as gloves, pipettes, tissues, petri dishes, and reagents, and they have to borrow personnel from other groups during busy times to complete sample analysis work.

Scientists working in other government agencies also said they cannot afford to pay publication fees and even basic experimental supplies for handling samples are not guaranteed. Some NOAA scientists have been forced to stop field research because their long-term contractors have been told to suspend cooperation.

According to reports by CNN, the Trump administration has taken measures to revoke, freeze, or review federal funding for seven top US universities, including Columbia University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Brown University, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, and Cornell University. Another 19 universities have been notified that their federal funding may be cut, reasons including failing to protect students from "anti-Semitism".

Among them, the two most notable cases are Columbia University and Harvard University. Previously, some US media reported that after the Trump administration threatened to stop providing $400 million in federal funds, Columbia University accepted "rectification" requirements. This includes: agreeing to ban masks on campus, authorizing 36 campus police officers to arrest students, and appointing a senior vice provost to supervise the Middle East, South Asia, and African Studies Department and the Palestinian Research Center.

Recently, Harvard University became the first university to "stand firm." On April 14, Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a statement that the "rectification" requirements proposed by the Trump administration exceeded the authority of the federal government, infringing on the rights of Harvard granted by the First Amendment of the Constitution, and also exceeded the statutory authority granted to the government under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Following this, the US government announced that it would freeze Harvard's $2.2 billion multi-year grant and $60 million multi-year contract payments. If Harvard continues to "defy orders," the other more than $6 billion in federal funding under review may also be "at risk." On April 15, Trump posted on social media, threatening to deprive Harvard University of its tax-exempt status and treat it as a "political entity" for taxation.

Besides universities, Trump's "witch hunt" also affected numerous international students. According to US media statistics, since late March, about 1,100 international students and recent graduates from over 170 US colleges and universities had their visas or statuses revoked in the "Student and Exchange Visitor Program" (SEVIS). Some of them lost their legal status without receiving any warnings, for example, for expressing dissent, such as participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but more people lost their status for unknown reasons.

On April 18, more than 100 affected international students jointly filed a lawsuit in the US Federal Court, demanding the restoration of their legal status and stopping the government from continuing to implement this policy. The complaint pointed out that the aforementioned international students suddenly lost their legal status without receiving any warnings.

This article is an exclusive contribution by Guancha Observer and cannot be reproduced without permission.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7495029499533197864/

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