The Evolution of NSF: From Independence to Political Capture

Vannevar Bush’s “The Endless Frontier,” Interrupted

In 1945, Vannevar Bush delivered his landmark report Science, The Endless Frontier to President Truman. His argument was simple yet radical. The federal government should fund basic research not for immediate military or commercial return. This funding would secure long-term prosperity. Out of that vision, the National Science Foundation (NSF) was created in 1950. NSF is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories. The NSF is tasked with supporting the best ideas across all disciplines. It trains the next generation of scientists and remains independent of partisan politics. Up until now.

For seventy-five years, NSF held to that mission. Even during the Cold War, when Washington poured resources into missiles and moonshots, NSF preserved a space for curiosity-driven inquiry. It became a steward of expansive martyrdom: sacrifice in the current for discoveries that help everyone in the future. An excellent article by Jeffrey Mervis, senior correspondent at Science magazine, wrote NSF Held Captive. In his article, he explores how Trump directives have undermined a 75-year history of the independent NSF.

That independence ended under Donald Trump.

A Captive Agency

By 2025, NSF was no longer steering its own course. The White House ordered programs shut down not for lack of merit but for political reasons. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives were banned. Climate science was stripped from budgets. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) embedded inside NSF, empowered to override peer-reviewed grant decisions. If you visit https://www.nsf.gov/ and search for DEI funded programs, you will not find any reference beyond 2024. Diversity, equity & inclusion programs have been wiped from the NSF, as well public and private schools and universities. In 2025, over 1,500 grants were canceled. Many of these were related to DEI. This was after a Trump administration directive. Some were reinstated after a court order.

Another change is a question of funding research on misinformation/disinformation?

Per the Presidential Action announced January 20, 2025, NSF will not rank certain research proposals. These are proposals that engage in conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge free speech. The measures aim to protect every American citizen’s right to free speech. NSF will not support research aimed at combating “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “malinformation.” Such research infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens. It also advance a preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.(Source: NSF Update on Priorities)

The changes were incremental: a fellowship program cut in half, then partly restored only after White House intervention. A premier mathematics institute defunded after its host university was accused of antisemitism. Nonprofits forced to certify their research contained no DEI. Each move survivable, even rationalized as efficiency. But the compass was turning.

Even if I turn only a few degrees each time, the direction will gradually change. After 10 or 15 times, I’m going to be heading off in a different direction.” —

Gregory Hager

That direction was away from independence and toward political capture.

The tactics first deployed at EPA became the template for capturing NSF in 2025.

Historical Echoes

Trump’s assault on NSF is not without precedent. Stalin elevated Trofim Lysenko, whose pseudoscience crippled Soviet biology for decades.Critics were jailed or killed. Soviet agriculture collapsed, and an entire generation of biology was lost. Trump’s bans on DEI and climate science were milder echoes of the same principle: political loyalty over empirical truth.

During the McCarthy era In the 1950s, U.S. academics were forced to sign loyalty oaths or face dismissal. McCarthyism is a political practice characterized by the persecution of left-wing individuals. It involves the political repression of dissenters and a campaign that spreads fear of communist influence on American institutions.  Careers were ruined not for lack of brilliance but for failing ideological tests.

NSF’s “honor system”—requiring grantees to certify that projects avoided DEI—bears an uncanny resemblance. Different era, same logic.

Science faced attacks many times during the Trump years. The effects were detrimental not only to science, but to the very nature of democracy.

The Trump Files

Expansive vs. Constrictive Martyrdom

There is another way to understand this drift: through the lens of martyrdom. I will be publishing an article next week on martyrdom.

Democracies have long been shaped by what is called expansive martyrdom: sacrifices that broaden freedom. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy—their deaths, though tragic, widened the democratic horizon. Vannevar Bush’s creation of NSF was a different sacrifice. He invested money and patience in science without a guarantee of return. He trusted that knowledge would spread for the public good.

The Trump-era NSF signifies the opposite: constrictive martyrdom. Institutions and careers were sacrificed not to expand opportunity but to narrow it. DEI was struck down because it symbolized inclusion. Climate research was defunded because it contradicted political narratives. The martyrdom here is institutional. NSF’s independence quietly bleeds away. A public good is slowly converted into a partisan tool.

The Long Drift

The genius—and the danger—of drift is its subtlety. Revolutions happen overnight. Drift happens degree by degree, each change survivable, even rationalized as efficiency or alignment. But over time, the destination shifts beyond recognition.

That is the story of NSF. An agency was designed to fund “science in all fields and disciplines.” It was transformed into an agency funding only what politics permitted. What was once expansive became constrictive. What was once a frontier became a cage.

The cost is profound. NSF fellowships once seeded the careers of Nobel laureates. Mathematical institutes like UCLA’s IPAM nurtured breakthroughs in theory and application. DEI initiatives slowly expanded the talent pool in coding, physics, and data science. These were not luxuries. They were the roots of American scientific leadership.

Knowledge itself was made a casualty.

By redirecting funding, enforcing loyalty oaths, and sidelining entire fields, the Trump administration jeopardized those roots. Industry partnerships may sustain favored projects like AI in the short term. But without the full breadth of disciplines—and the freedom to explore without political constraint—the ecosystem withers.

Lessons for the Future

From the vantage of history, the Trump-era NSF was not destroyed, only bent. And that bending illustrates a larger democratic truth: institutions need not be abolished to be captured. Degrees become distances, and distances become destinies.

The lesson is stark. Independence, once surrendered, is hard to regain. Scientists certified away DEI content. They trimmed their proposals to fit partisan priorities. They may have felt they were merely surviving. But survival under constraint accumulates into complicity.

The martyrdom of NSF is a warning: knowledge itself can be sacrificed. The question is whether such sacrifices will broaden democracy or constrict it. Our future depends on how we answer.