“Stand Up For Science” rally at Washington Square ParkAnadolu/Getty
On Friday, protesters gathered in Washington, DC, and at more than 30 satellite protests nationwide in what appears to be the largest pro-science demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The “Stand Up for Science” rally, led by a small team of scientists, comes amid historic cuts to publicly funded research and firings at science agencies across the federal government. As I previously reported:
Since taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have put research funding on hold; paused communication and travel at the National Institutes of Health; removed or edited websites related to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) at NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration; slashed funding for universities’ “indirect costs” (a move academics say will limit research); and fired hundreds of federal employees across the government’s health agencies.
On their website, the Stand Up for Science organizers call for reversing those measures—ending “censorship and political interference in science,” securing and expanding scientific funding, and defending diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in science.
In New York City, hundreds of Stand Up for Science protesters gathered in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park, holding signs reading, “Science Makes America Great,” “Fund Facts Not Felons,” and “Girls Just Want to Have Funding for Science.” At times, the crowd chanted in call-and-response, “When science is under attack, what do we do? Fight Back!”
Several signs noted science’s role in saving lives. One attendee, a New Jersey resident who asked only to be identified by first name, Richard, held a small sign that said, “Government Funded Biomedical Research Saved My Child’s Life.” At 14, he told me, his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. With the help of a new drug called an immune checkpoint inhibitor, she recovered. In a few weeks, she’ll graduate from college, he says, with plans to attend medical school. The “miracle” drug is what inspired him to protest. “It did literally save her life,” he said.
Others were there in part to defend their own funding. “I’m really glad to be out here,” Christine, a 33-year-old neuroscience postdoc, told me, noting that Trump’s cuts would impact those at the beginning of their career the most. “I really hope that protests and opposition can grow in momentum, because it’s scary that there is just not enough pushback at the moment.”
In DC, the guest list included big names like Bill Nye the Science Guy; former NIH director Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project; Nobel Laureate Victor Ambros; Bill Nelson, the previous administrator of NASA; climate scientist Michael Mann; the Union of Concerned Scientists’ new president Gretchen Goldman, and others.
While this may have been the largest scientist-led action of the second Trump era, it wasn’t the first. As I previously reported, shortly after Trump paused funding for many scholars, hundreds of researchers held a phone bank to call on their elected officials to push back against Trump’s cuts. In February, a coalition of academic unions called Labor for Higher Education organized a national day of action, including protests and phone-banking events across the country.
Although reminiscent of 2017’s March for Science, Friday’s Stand Up for Science March felt distinctly different. “The spirit of it is the same,” Stand Up for Science founder Colette Delawalla told the New York Times, but “now we are in a position of being on defense as opposed to offense.” Or, as my colleague Jeremy Schulman, covering DC’s march, wrote on Bluesky, the March for Science “was overwhelmingly about Trump being a science denier.” Today, Schulman said, “it’s largely focused on the consequences of research funding cuts.”
Still, it’s hard not to hear an echo. As Amy Berkov, a retired tropical ecologist who attended the March for Science eight years ago, told me in New York, “[I’m] sad to be returning with my sign from 2017,” motioning to a sign that read, “Collect and Analyze Data” and “Reject Alternative Facts.” “But it’s time again.”
