Lucas Dillard sees himself as a scientist’s equivalent of JD Vance.
He was set to join the Navy after being raised by a single mother in rural Appalachia, but he was able to attend North Carolina State University thanks to a Pell award.
He was fortunate enough to land a job in a lab with a structural biologist who allowed him to do his own research as a result of a work-study requirement. He was accepted into the National Institutes of Health’s post-baccalaureate program thanks to those projects, and the articles he produced there helped him land a Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins in molecular biophysics.
His efforts at Hopkins also earned him a renowned N.I.H. fellowship last year, which funds the nation’s brightest PhD candidates to pursue further scientific studies.
As the N.I.H. scrambled to comply with President Trump’s executive order prohibiting federally financed diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, it canceled thousands of grants, including Mr. Dillard’s.In addition to denying, discrediting, and undermining the traditional American principles of diligence, excellence, and individual success, the order accused the programs of utilizing racial and sexual preferences, which it claimed were harmful, degrading, and immoral.
However, Mr. Trump’s attempt to terminate D.E.I. has been a harsh tool, removing extremely competitive grant programs that went far beyond gender and ethnicity to define diversity. In addition to Black and Latino professionals, many white scientists from rural areas—hardly Trump country—like Mr. Dillard have also lost grants. Universities have been denounced by the administration as centers of liberal elitism that are intolerant of different points of view. By creating a pipeline from less affluent and typically more conservative regions of the nation, the scrapped diversity grant programs aimed to reduce the elite status of science.
Mr. Dillard stated, “I think it’s very different in their minds, who is getting the D.E.I. stuff.” Those on the right are unaware that by supporting this, they are restricting their own children’s opportunities.
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