Executive orders spark cuts in CPP research funding
By Victoria Mejicanos, April 22, 2025
Funding for research across disciplines and political parties is facing cuts or freezes, including at Cal Poly Pomona, due to executive orders signed by President Donald Trump that are “anti-DEI.”
As a major agriculture school in California, CPP has received several grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was reported during an Academic Senate meeting held in late March that three of the USDA grants have been suspended, and one of the three grants’ purpose was to support student scholarships.
According to Craig LaMunyon, the associate vice president for research and innovation at CPP, faculty, staff and administrators receive anywhere between $25 million and $35 million in new research funding each year. This funding often comes from federal grants through organizations like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense.
Marcos Scauso, a political science professor at CPP, said cuts in funding were already going to be happening system-wide due to budgetary constraints , but now, with the combination of the impact of these executive orders, many universities —including CPP — will struggle.
“That really undermines the possibility of faculty being cutting-edge, knowing new things and doing new research,”Scauso said. “We’re going to fall behind with other articles from other people, and we can offer better education for our students.”
Scauso lost funding from the Council of American Overseas Research Center. He received a scholarship, which would have allowed him to travel throughout Mexico in a cultural exchange program.
“The goal of the program is to have faculty who do research on critical aspects and teach critical aspects travel throughout Mexico in sort of a cultural exchange program that teaches you about other voices, other ways of life, critiques of injustices by some of those voices,” Scauso said.
He had already accepted and been promised the grant, with the funding for this scholarship coming from last year’s budget, when he received an email stating the council no longer had access to funds for the program. By the time he got the email, he had already planned travel and research work for the summer.
Another CPP professor, who wishes to stay anonymous to not jeopardize his appeals process, also lost federal funding for research after being promised it. Because he earned a significant grant, he had to go through the process of taking half pay. Despite the grant now being denied, he still has to take half pay.
“I’m fortunate to be in a two-earner household, where I have affordable ren and I don’t have dependents,” the professor said. “So I’m in a situation where I can afford to lose (that money).”
In the email notifying the professor about the termination of the grant, the agency cited several executive orders and said there is “reasonable cause” to terminate the grant “in light of the fact that the (agency) is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda. The President’s February 19, 2025 executive order mandates that the (agency) eliminate all non-statutorily required activities and functions.”
The email also described the termination of the grant as “necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities.”
The executive orders referenced wasteful government diversity, equity and inclusion programs and preferencing; defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government; and ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling as the reason for terminating the grant.
The professor said his research had nothing to do with race, gender or education. He has been searching for a grant to fund his research since 2019, calling the termination of the grant “disheartening and demoralizing.” He shared his belief that the government is purposefully scaring its citizens in an effort to silence them throughout multiple interviews with The Poly Post.
Scauso explained research, conferencing and traveling are what allow faculty to be connected to their disciplines and stay knowledgeable, but he also shared that these executive orders have broader implications on the student experience amid an already-struggling system.
“I would argue that these sort of budgetary cuts in the (California State University system), for example, can be viewed as a precautionary reaction of what California sees coming our way,” Scauso said. “That’s already affecting students because we have less adjuncts, more students, more students per classroom and stuff like that.”
Students who wish to continue their education in graduate school are also impacted, according to Scauso, since several universities in the U.S. have frozen graduate student admissions all together.
“It’s going to be harder to go to grad school, and you’re going to have less money, and there’s going to be less programs,”Scuaso said. “Students go to grad school, sometimes applying to fellowships that are extremely prestigious, and from the NSF or some of these programs, which are now no longer funded.”
One of the students Scuaso works with at UC Irvine had a three-year fellowship with NSF, but now she’s unsure if she will be paid due to funding cuts and freezes. If you or someone you know on campus has been affected by these orders, The Poly Post is opening a public form for people to fill out anonymously in an effort to track the orders’ impact on the CPP community.
Feature image courtesy of Victoria Mejicanos
