EXCLUSIVE: Congress Has Power To Rein In Wacky, Wasteful DEI Spending In Science, Watchdog Says

Congress has the power to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in scientific research grantmaking at the National Science Foundation (NSF), according to an analysis from OpenTheBooks released Thursday.

OpenTheBooks’ report, first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, claims that “far too many” of the NSF’s scientific grants “reward divisive identity politics.” The watchdog organization also claimed that the NSF has descended into “ideological madness” in recent years.

OpenTheBooks wrote further that Congress “has a policy majority and popular mandate to excise DEI from public spending.” An October 2024 analysis from the organization found that the Biden administration shelled out over $800 million on education-focused grants from NSF promoting DEI.

One NSF grant OpenTheBooks uncovered was $445,600 awarded to Ohio State University for Girls* on Rock, a program which aims to diversify the geosciences by providing “16-18-year-old girls and nonbinary individuals with immersive, hands-on experiences in the geosciences, combined with elements of artistic expression and technical rock climbing in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado.” (RELATED: ‘Misinformation’ Researchers Are Losing It After Trump Admin Cuts More Funding)

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA – JULY 08: The entrance of 2514 Eisenhower Avenue, where the National Science Foundation is also located, is seen on July 8, 2025 in Alexandria, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

OpenTheBooks wrote in their report that “criteria mandated by Congress have structurally incentivized adding DEI, minority outreach and gender politics to grant proposals in order to win funding.”

“Nonprofits have followed suit,” the watchdog wrote further. “In future administrations that may not align with Trump’s executive orders, [the] existing statute risks sending federal money right back toward the same set of distractions and away from hard scientific innovation. Every dollar the federal government spends on a faddish DEI grant is a dollar not available to cure breast cancer or childhood leukemia.”

Additionally, Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz released a report in October 2024 which found that the NSF allocated over $2.05 billion to thousands of research projects that “promoted neo-Marxist perspectives or DEI tenets” under the Biden administration.

The Trump administration has been spearheading a push to dismantle DEI and gender ideology across the U.S. During a joint address to Congress in March, President Donald Trump said that his administration has “ended the tyranny of so-called [DEI] policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector.”

The NSF did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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