University of Nebraska singled out in President Trump's 'skinny budget'

The University of Nebraska is, once again, the target of federal budget cuts under President Donald Trump

The university is one of several higher education institutions mentioned in the administration’s newly published budget proposal released Friday. The so-called “skinny budget” is a preliminary outline of how the administration would like to see Congress act on federal spending.

In the budget proposal document, the administration identified funding it would like to cut from the National Science Foundation (NSF). In its reasoning for eliminating some funding, the White House wrote, “NSF has fueled research with dubious public value, like speculative impacts from extreme climate scenarios and niche social studies, such as a grant to the University of Nebraska to create ‘affinity groups’ for bird watchers.”

The aforementioned grant helped launch the Flocks Project, which used the $500,000 funding to “better understand the experiences of ornithologists in the society and to co-create affinity groups aimed at serving underrepresented communities in ornithology.” The project sought to build communities in ornithology to help retain researchers and diversify the field.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln utilized around $200,000 in funding and was the lead institution on the project, while several other partner universities received funding for their contributions as well. Three ornithological societies helped support the research, including the American Ornithological Society, the Wilson Ornithological Society and the Association of Field Ornithologists.

Dr. Dai Shizuka, an associate professor at UNL’s School of Biological Sciences, is a lead investigator for the Flocks Project. He said the project lost its funding during a recent round of federal cuts, and the project leaders are currently looking for other sources of funding to continue their work.

“Science is done by scientists, who are people who need community to thrive,” Shizuka said. “Scientific societies are a primary way to do that. What we were trying to do was find new ways to build community – to make sure that everyone kind of felt like they belonged in ornithology. We know that the sense of belonging is key to a person’ decision about whether to stay or leave a scientific field, so part of the goal was to study that as well.”

Ashley Dayer is another Flocks Project founder studying at Virginia Tech. She told the Associated Press last month that federal cuts have also affected her bird studies. An email notified her that the Trump administration cut her funding because “the project investigating the role of bird feeders touched on themes of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

NSF funding awards were abruptly canceled in late April to adhere to Trump’s directives to halt funding for research on diversity, equity and inclusion. The deep funding cuts follow the administration’s ongoing pullback this year of federal money to programs that the Trump administration calls “wokeism,” especially in higher education.

A wide array of departments, even Nebraska-based programs focused on climate research and agriculture research, have been affected during the rounds of federal funding pauses and cuts so far this year.

If the “skinny budget” proposal is accepted by Congress, the National Science Foundation would lose almost $5 billion in funding – more than half of its overall budget of $9 billion. President Trump has criticized NSF for certain projects it’s funded since he took office. Amid the federal criticism, NSF’s Trump-appointed director Sethuraman Panchanathan departed the foundation last week, saying “I believe I have done all I can.”