STAT+: Scientists protest White House plan to put political appointees in charge of grant-making

Since taking office, President Trump has vowed to dismantle what he calls the “deep state” and “fire rogue bureaucrats.” His latest attempt to do so has garnered widespread pushback from scientists over concerns that the move will politicize decisions about federal funding for research on a scale never before seen in the U.S. 

The object of this anger is an Office of Personnel Management proposal that would reclassify broad swaths of federal bureaucrats as political appointees — making their employment up to the whim of the administration in power. Notably, among those who would be reclassified are employees across the government involved in grant-making functions, which is seen by former National Institutes of Health officials as a route to making the directors of that agency’s institutes and centers political appointees without certain civil service protections. 

“There is a threat of more politics, more instability, [and] loss of people who have the institutional memory and the skill set to manage NIH operations well,” Jeremy Berg, who previously led one of the NIH’s institutes, said in an interview. 

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