The board of the prestigious program told the State Department it had no right to cancel scholarships for nearly 200 American professors and researchers.

The dozen board members of the prestigious Fulbright program that promotes international educational exchanges resigned on Wednesday because of what they said was political interference by the Trump administration in their operations, according to people familiar with the issues and a board memo obtained by The New York Times.

The members are concerned that political appointees at the State Department, which manages the program, are acting illegally by canceling the awarding of Fulbright scholarships to almost 200 American professors and researchers who are prepared to go to universities and other research institutions overseas starting this summer, said the people, including Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire.

  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    16·
    20 days ago

    The actions come as President Trump and his top aides seek to bend academic institutions to their ideological beliefs. The State Department’s public diplomacy office is run by Darren Beattie, a political appointee who was fired from a job during the first Trump administration after he gave a talk at a conference attended by white nationalists. He has made social media posts on white grievances, including one saying “competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” and ones ridiculing Mr. Rubio.

    God, every imbecile in this administration is somehow worse than the last. It’s dizzying sometimes, like imagining a paradoxical Ouroboros of incompetence that somehow has eaten itself to completion and is still going.