This morning’s Austin American-Statesman headline about the University of Texas at Austin losing $47 million in research grants is, though anticipated, still deeply hurtful and disheartening. The abrupt termination of federally funded research—particularly in areas tied to race, gender, immigration, and mental health—signals a dangerous shift.
For example, the defunding of Dr. Danielle Clealand’s research project documenting Black Cuban immigrant history amounts to a deliberate erasure of Black Latinx political subjectivity and historical presence. It reflects the Trump administration’s broader agenda to silence inconvenient truths about our nation’s past.
This moment demands more than mere adaptation—it calls for a collective refusal to normalize the ideological purge of the public university, a purge that state policy is actively advancing. Senate Bill 37 (2025), along with its predecessors Senate Bill 17 (2023) and Senate Bill 3 (2021), exemplifies this ongoing campaign to dismantle all public education as a space for critical inquiry and inclusive knowledge production. What is happening is neither neutral nor inevitable. This is a direct form of epistemic violence—a deliberate effort to delegitimize knowledge created by and for marginalized communities.
And this is happening not in spite of our nation’s changing demographics, but precisely because of them. These relentless, white supremacist policy attacks reveal an anxious reaction to the growing presence and power of communities of color, on the one hand, and a jealous protection of the political incumbencies of those currently in power.
Another way to think about this is as an attack by white Baby Boomers in power against Gen Z youth who are members of the most diverse age-generational cohort in the history of the U.S. And any attack on our youth is truly disgusting.
Let’s be clear: we are not mystified by any of this—neither by Mr. Trump nor by Texas Gov. Abbott. This is not about resource scarcity or policy reform driven by public need. This is about control—about who gets to define knowledge, whose histories are preserved, and which communities are allowed to speak.
But we are not without power. We will continue to write, teach, organize, and resist. We will document what they try to erase. We will protect what they seek to destroy. And we will build coalitions strong enough to ensure that the public university remains a place where truth is spoken, justice is pursued, and all people are seen. We are still here. We are not going anywhere. And we will not be silent.
-Angela Valenzuela
UT loses $47M in research grants under Trump Administration; more than 60 projects cut
Lily KepnerAustin American-Statesman | May 21, 2025
Danielle Clealand, an associate professor in the University of Texas College of Liberal Arts, celebrated after receiving a $250,000 research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create a historical archive of untold history in Miami.
The federal agency’s research funding would allow her to share the history of Black Cuban immigration in the 1960s and ’70s — a subject inspired by her experiences with racism in Miami before joining UT.
But in April, as dozens of her colleagues would soon find out for themselves, the UT Office of Sponsored Projects informed her the project was among several the federal government had terminated. The federal agency did not send her a letter or an explanation for the termination, she said.
The federal government in recent months has terminated or paused 67 research projects at UT, cutting more than $47 million in funding since President Donald Trump resumed office in January, according to a document obtained by the American-Statesman via the Texas Public Information Act.
Only four regained funding, but before those cancellations were reversed, the federal government had halted $52 million in UT research funding.
"Definitely at the time of election, I didn't think about this,” Clealand said. “There's just a devastating halt in important research across academia and across disciplines, and all of us are trying to figure out how to come back from this."
In February, the American-Statesman reported that $6 million had been cut or paused, a small fraction of the current total. Twenty-three projects alone were cut in the last three weeks, according to the UT projects document.
UT is heralded as a research powerhouse in Texas, exceeding $1 billion in total research expenditures last year, made possible with federal support.
Sixty percent of UT's total research expenditures come from the federal government ― almost triple the next largest slice of the pie, institutional funds. But under the Trump administration's enforcement of its executive orders against diversity, equity and inclusion, transgender and nonbinary gender identity, green energy and a commitment to reducing inefficient federal spending, the university has had to reckon with the loss of millions in research funding.
"To navigate these changes, we have started active scenario planning for this fiscal year and next year," interim President Jim Davis said in an April 15 email to faculty. "While we assess future funding needs and opportunities at the University level, we know that colleges, schools and units are beginning to work on their own 'local' solutions. During the weeks ahead, we will continue to gather input and consult our campus partners on how to adjust to changes that impact funding."
What research has been affected at UT?
It's not just the humanities: the research funding cuts span COVID-19-related projects, anti-bias training in math, susceptibility to fake news, technology access for marginalized communities, mental health training, climate change, and health of spouses in same and different sex marriages.
The UT project funding cuts span more than 15 government agencies, from the Department of Defense and Homeland Security to the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Endowment for the Arts. The National Science Foundation terminated 18 projects, the National Institutes of Health terminated or stopped nine, and the National Endowment for the Humanities stopped or canceled seven.
The National Science Foundation released a statement about its priorities April 18, the same day it cut eight grants to UT, saying it will fund projects based on intellectual merit and maximum impact. All projects, under these priorities, "must aim to create opportunities for all Americans everywhere" and cannot exclude groups. This mandate from NSF and other agencies has hit diversity-related research specifically, Clealand said.
"Race and ethnicity scholarship is being targeted, and so a lot of the work that we do to study marginalized communities is being halted," Clealand said.
The primary investigators on the projects include award-winning researchers, including last year's UT 2024 Presidential Research Impact Award recipient, who developed a simulation to predict hurricane storm surges that is now used globally to prepare communities for such catastrophic events. On April 8, the agency terminated the researcher's project to improve wave prediction models, stating that it was no longer in line with its priorities, according to the document.
Molly Lopez, the director of the Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health in the UT School of Social Work, works with schools and public health systems to strengthen research-backed approaches to mental health in communities. Her work on Texas Early Psychosis Implementation Centers helped establish the state as a leader in early treatment and intervention of psychosis, a serious mental health condition that causes individuals to become disconnected from reality.
But in April, a $55,000 federally funded initiative to train the 32 Texas centers was terminated due to its connection with COVID-19-related support funds, she said. The state has agreed to cover the funding to continue the new training, Lopez said, but the federal cuts cost researchers weeks' worth of work.
"It is now a few months that we have not had to work on it, so we will have a much shorter timeline, and I have no doubt that will impact our ability to do everything that we wanted to do," Lopez said.
The National Endowment for the Humanities in April also canceled UT art historian and archeologist Stephennie Mulder's grant, which funded the publication of two volumes based on her research of 10,000 ceramics in Syria she excavated over 12 years with other research partners. The project was in its final year before it was canceled, and though she was able to complete her project, she worries about any future study and the consequences of that loss.
Her project wasn't just about art: it helped bring to light information about Islamic culture, an "understudied" religion at universities despite its prominence in the world and in regions of historic interest and involvement in the United States, she said. It also helped her form deep connections with other cultures and added valuable insight to the field of humanities, as the world becomes more polarized and reliant on artificial intelligence, she said.
"The increasing politicization of what the humanities are for, hand in hand with the high cost of universities, has made people think of these types of classes as kind of like, expendable," she said. "Humanities have never been more important than ever, like we really have to fight for them right now, because that's going to be really an existential question for us: What is humanity actually? What is it even all about?"
How is UT reacting?
Multiple UT presidents have said research is the tie — the unequivocal good — to restore faith in the value of higher education to Texas, to the nation and to the world as trust in the industry, particularly among conservatives, declines. Internally, UT has assured its faculty members that the university will adjust to all federal changes and it has provided regular updates and assurances to faculty, according to emails obtained.
"I think a lot of times the public thinks about research as things that are happening in laboratories that don't necessarily impact them in a real-world way and I would want them to know that research really impacts people," Lopez said. "Sometimes you're not even necessarily aware of the research that's happened behind the things that can later impact you."
The researchers told the Statesman that UT filed appeals for their projects, and it has been very helpful to them, but there is a limit to what the university can do in the long term.
"My university has offered me a little bit of money to try to continue the research, but they don't have the resources to be able to provide what NEH provided," Clealand said. "There'll be a serious slowdown."
UT spokesperson Mike Rosen said the institution is adjusting to the federal government's changes but will continue to pursue its research mission effectively.
"UT has a long history of delivering research that aligns with our national interests and contributes significantly to important drivers of American leadership in the world: improving health and quality of life, keeping the US on the frontiers of science, bolstering our national and economic security, and giving our military a technological advantage," he said in a statement to the Statesman. "As federal leaders reevaluate how taxpayer dollars are invested in research, we will adapt, and we will remain committed to advancing our nation and the world."
What's next?
Outside of the university and public funds, most private funders focus on science, not humanities, Mulder said, noting that funding for humanities was already hyper limited and competitive, as the NEH has a much smaller pot of research funding than other federal agencies.
"For the cost of a candy bar, Americans every year get all of this incredible research, and a lot of it goes into local communities," Mulder said. "Effectively, research in the humanities doesn't have any funding anymore, really."
Lopez said she and other researchers worry about the availability of funding for future projects, or more changes to come.
But regardless of the uncertain future, the professors believe research will continue.
What drives Lopez is the importance of the work in transforming communities, schools and individuals' ability to access mental health care in a way that creates the largest possible impact.
When Clealand's first book was published, community members approached her and thanked her for sharing their stories. Inspired by her work, they formed an Afro-Latino professional organization in Miami that has penned opinion pieces and supports Black Cubans against discrimination.
Although she is exhausted and concerned for the future, Clealand is confident that somehow her work will continue.
"We're passionate, and we're not going to stop," Clealand said. "We're going to find any way that we can to do this research, and I include myself in that."
