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More than 300 researchers and educators rallied outside the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in downtown Boston on Wednesday to protest President Donald Trump’s attempted cuts to federal funding for research.
Several Harvard groups — including the University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors and Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers — participated in the demonstration. Protesters braved frigid temperatures to blast Trump’s executive orders to slash federal funding for research overhead expenses and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
The rally was organized in response to a Feb. 7 order from the National Institutes of Health that the University estimated would have would reduced NIH funding for Harvard’s indirect expenses from $135 million in fiscal year 2024 to just $31 million. The order was temporarily blocked by a federal judge last week.
The NIH announcement has left Harvard administrators scrambling to understand how exactly the order could be enforced. Despite the pause, Harvard researchers are bracing for severe reductions in the funding they depend on for rent, equipment, and utilities needed to keep research projects running.
In a speech at the rally, Kojo Acheampong ’26, a member of Harvard Undergraduate Workers Union-UAW, said “universities are complicit” in Trump’s attacks on higher education. Acheampong implied Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 was collaborating with Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya, Trump’s nominee to lead the NIH and Garber’s former student and research partner.
“They’re in cahoots,” Acheampong said in an interview after the rally. “They clearly have a relationship.”
For his part, Garber issued a statement hours after the executive order warning the cuts would mean “severely compromised” scientific research and treatment development.
A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment for this article.
During the rally, demonstrators held signs — including ones that read “Freezing Funds Freezes Treatments” and “Keep Fascism Out of Our DNA” — that took aim at both Trump and Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who has led Trump’s effort to gut federal agencies.
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History professor Mary D. Lewis said in an interview that she attended the rally to support “actually distributing those funds as they were intended.”
Lewis criticized Trump’s attempted federal funding freeze as “unconstitutional” and said she found “the whole situation appalling.”
In speeches, several medical practitioners slammed Trump over his attempted funding freezes and argued that scientific research like their own had broad value for society that warranted funding.
Stephanie Ragland, a pediatric research fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital, said that life-saving medical discoveries such as penicillin required federal support and were “simply not possible at companies where money drives the bottom line.”
“Anyone can die of an infection, even important people, even billionaires,” Ragland said.
In an interview after the rally, Adam Schyla — a member of the HAW-UAW bargaining committee and postdoctoral student at Harvard Medical School — said that before the judge halted the NIH order restricting research funding, he didn’t know if he would receive a salary for the month.
“There was definitely a window of about 48 hours where I was genuinely not sure if I was gonna get paid for January,” said Schyla, who researches microbiology.
Other speakers criticized Trump’s funding cut as an attack on DEI initiatives.
In her speech, Bianca Ortiz-Wythe — a policy analyst at UMass Boston’s Gaston institute for Latino Community Development — said that she and her colleagues had been told to “whitewash” any mention of DEI and environmental justice in order to meet what she described as “fascist political demands.”
“These federal attacks are sabotaging critical research projects by dismantling the very infrastructure meant to address systemic injustice,” Ortiz-Wythe said. “We cannot sit back and allow higher education to be defunded, dismantled, and devalued.”
Niki K. Thomas — a member of the Graduate Employees of Northeastern University-UAW bargaining committee — said the funding cuts and other Trump policies like immigration restrictions are emblematic of fascism.
“They are symptoms of the same disease, a system that prioritizes power and profit over people,” Thomas said.
After the speeches, many demonstrators marched to the O’Neill Federal Building a few blocks away to join unionized federal workers protesting Trump’s decision to fire tens of thousands of federal employees.
Kimberly Wilson, a vice president for the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, said in an interview that federal workers are “in particular disastrous shape” after the firings.
“We need to do everything we can to support them,” Wilson said. “What they’re going through is just unbelievable.”
In the last line of her speech, Ortiz-Wythe, the UMass Boston policy analyst, blasted the Trump administration for politicizing funding for scientific research and universities at large.
“We demand that higher education be protected as a public good, not a political playground,” Ortiz said.
Correction: February 21, 2025
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that History professor Mary D. Lewis criticized proposed limits on NIH funding for indirect costs as unconstitutional. In fact, Lewis was criticizing an earlier attempt to broadly freeze federal funding.
—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.
—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.
