FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 23, 2025
July 23, 2025
Contact:
Tim Kauffman
202-374-6491
[email protected]
AFGE National Science Foundation Members Denounce Trump’s Attacks on Agency
Petition signed by nearly 150 NSF workers says ‘politically motivated and legally questionable’ actions jeopardize agency’s mission and threaten integrity of non-political civil service
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is dismantling the National Science Foundation through a series of politically motivated and legally questionable actions that jeopardize the agency’s mission and threaten the integrity of the non-political civil service, employees say.
A group of 149 members of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403 who work at the agency detailed the attacks in a letter to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, ranking member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. The employees pointed to a series of actions by the Trump administration targeting the agency including budget and workforce cuts, the cancellation of grants by the Department of Government Efficiency, the pending eviction from the agency’s Northern Virginia headquarters, and violations of the employees’ union contract that undercut workers’ rights and job protections.
“Our members – scientists, program officers, and administrators – are facing an unprecedented assault. Over 1,600 research grants were canceled without scientific justification. Ten percent of our workforce has been unlawfully terminated. And $2.2 billion in approved funding is being illegally withheld,” AFGE Local 3403 President Jesus Soriano said at a press conference Tuesday to announce the letter.
“We’ve never had to do anything like this. But when civil service protections are stripped away and scientific merit is replaced by political loyalty, we have no choice,” Soriano said.
Soriano was joined at the press conference by Rep. Lofgren and AFGE National President Everett Kelley, both of whom praised the employees for speaking out.
“For 75 years, NSF has made this country a destination for students, innovators, and Nobel laureates. In just a little over six months, this administration has torn it to shreds,” Lofgren said in a statement issued after the press conference. “I thank the 149 signers of the whistleblower disclosure for their bravery and their patriotism – there is no higher fulfillment of the oath you took to the Constitution than to speak out against these terrible actions. I promise to do all I can to protect you, protect your agency, and protect our scientific enterprise.”
President Kelley said the attacks on federal workers at NSF mirror what is going on across the federal government.
“Let’s be clear: these attacks on NSF are part of a much larger campaign to dismantle the merit-based civil service, replace expertise with obedience, and turn independent agencies into partisan tools. If they can do this to NSF – a nonpartisan science agency – they can do it anywhere in government,” Kelley said.
NSF employees are calling on Congress to intervene to prevent more indiscriminate firings and uphold workers’ rights, require the administration to release money that has already been appropriated to the agency, demand transparency from the administration on the actions it is taking, and defend the agency’s scientific work from political interference.
“NSF employees are committed to serving the American people through research, education, and innovation. But they cannot do so under fear, censorship, and institutional sabotage,” the employees said in the letter. “Without immediate oversight and corrective action from Congress, one of our nation’s greatest engines for scientific and technological advancement faces irreversible long-term damage.”
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