A new AAUP report out today details troubling threats to academic freedom in the physical and natural sciences that have been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s hostility to science. One focus of the report is international scientific exchange and, especially, the repeated charging of innocent Chinese or Chinese American scientists with espionage in the name of national security. Another is climate science, which has been subject to vicious attacks that have intensified significantly under the current administration.  

The report’s survey of recent criminal cases involving international scientific exchange suggests that the government’s invocation of national security claims related to espionage has not been justified and is negatively affecting the ability of the United States to participate in global science.

President Trump’s executive orders restricting entry to the United States for residents of certain Muslim-majority countries and efforts to limit H-1B visas to foreign scientists pose additional, disturbing threats to scientific exchange.

The report explores how the politicization of science, rooted in anti-intellectualism and propelled by anti-elitist mantras, is constraining the free pursuit of knowledge and scientific inquiry and limiting the ability of science to serve the public good.

Learn more or read the full report here.

Best wishes,
Gwendolyn Bradley, AAUP