Hundreds gather to protest cuts to medical research funding, crackdowns on DEI

Amid a federal government crackdown on academic and research institutions, hundreds of protesters filled the Tennessee State Capitol steps in downtown Nashville.

Among several other initiatives, the Trump administration is fighting a court battle to drastically cut medical research funding across the country — a policy that could drop more than $100 million in funding from Tennessee. It has removed blocked access to federal public health data and threatened universities for even mentioning diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programming. And it has appointed a vaccine skeptic to the highest public health position in the federal government.

Science supporters across the country held protests on Friday, pushing back against these developments and the political tides that seem to be pushing them.

“From my perspective, a lot of what’s been happening is just an outright aggressive attack on science from basically every angle,” said Theodore Morley, a volunteer organizer for the demonstration. “Lots of people I know have been dealing with censorship from the current administration, words that people aren’t allowed to use; grants haven’t been being reviewed, so that funding that goes out to science is slowed — if not completely stopped.”

Although speakers and signs mentioned other forms of science — like climatology — most focused on medicine.

They mentioned the ongoing measles outbreak that has killed two people in the Southwest. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy has been drawing ire from health professionals for casting doubts on the effective vaccine against measles, according to NPR. He’s also been promoting vitamin A as an alternative, although there is no evidence the vitamin prevents the infection.

At one point, the crowd in Nashville chanted, “RFK, go away.”

There was also a strong focus on National Institutes of Health grants. Tennessee gets around $700 million a year in NIH funding. The money goes to universities, hospitals and biomedical companies.

The Trump administration’s aim is to drop that budget — even on projects that are already underway — by nearly eliminating the funding for so-called indirect costs. Those cover the not-so-obvious needs in a lab, like electricity, water, building maintenance, IT, support staff and janitorial services. For projects at big research universities — like Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee — some of the money helps the overall school stay afloat.

Leaders at the state’s top research institutions — including Vanderbilt, Meharry Medical College and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital — pleaded their case a few weeks ago in a letter to Tennessee’s congressional delegation.

They called the cuts devastating to biomedical research. They also pointed out that current funding levels already fail to cover costs, and that universities are often on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars a year.