Document the MAGA attack on science

67 readers
48 users here now

Scope: Use this community to share news, developments, initiatives, pertaining to the MAGA attack on science, including political resistance of individual scientists or collective bodies, as well as pro-science communication strategy, and data rescue initiatives.

Rule 0: Prepend date of original article in square-brackets YYYYMMDD format!

Rule 1: Anti-vax and flat-earth are strictly prohibited.

Rule 2: Discipline/paradigm tribalism is frowned upon. Bashing the humanities on the basis of an "orden scientis" greatly overlaps with the purge rationale, and will be proactively moderated.

Rule 3: Site-wide code of conduct applies.

Rule 4: Cis-genderism is considered a form of science-denialism.

Rule 5: Ableism, eugenics, and gender/race essentialist pseudoscience will be removed upon detection, and reported to anti-nazi collectives.

founded 2 days ago
MODERATORS
1
2
3
 
 

Public Records Reveal How Agencies Complied With Trump's Anti-Trans Order

3/18/2025, 3:59:47 PM

📄 This article was primarily reported using public records requests. We are making it available to all readers as a public service. FOIA reporting can be expensive, please consider subscribing to 404 Media to support this work. Or send us a one time donation via our tip jar here. Public Records Reveal How Agencies Complied With Trump's Anti-Trans Order Using the Freedom of Information Act, 404 Media has obtained several memos that government agencies were required to create by President Trump in order to comply with his “Defending Women” executive order. The memos explain exactly how different agencies are seeking to purge the notion that trans people exist.

Many of the changes laid out in the memos had been previously reported by 404 Media and other news outlets. But the fact that we got anything back from FOIA at all indicates that it will likely be possible to get information about what the administration is doing by using public records requests. FOIA may indeed be a way to bring transparency and some semblance of accountability to an administration that has gutted the federal workforce and has attempted to evade public records laws, especially when those FOIAs are filed with non-DOGE agencies. In the first month of Trump’s administration, we have filed dozens of requests across many different agencies, including DOGE. We also led a training about how to do this yourself, which you can watch here. We will continue to report on the documents that we get as we get them.

The Office of Personnel Management required all federal agencies to submit a memo to the email address “defendingwomen@opm.gov” on February 7 that included “a.) a complete list of actions taken in response to this guidance and Defending Women; and b.) any agency plans to fully comply with this guidance and Defending Women.” 404 Media has obtained these memos from both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor. Muckrock user Russel Neiss obtained memos from the American Battle Monuments Commission and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 404 Media has pending requests with 24 other agencies.

The EPA’s memo was sent to the defendingwomen@opm.gov inbox but was also sent directly to Amanda Scales, a former HR executive for Elon Musk’s xAI company who is now chief of staff for the Office of Personnel Management, which functions more or less as the HR department for the federal government.

Both the EPA and Department of Labor memos have a series of bullet points that explain what the agencies did to comply with the executive order.

For the EPA, these included, for example: “Ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by biological sex and not gender identity,” and “Cancel any trainings that inculcate or promote gender ideology or have done so in the past.”

The Department of Labor, meanwhile, “Removed requests for ‘gender’ and substitute requests for ‘sex’ in agency forms,” and “Reviewed all agency programs, contracts, and grants, and identified for possible termination those that promote or inculcate gender ideology. Additionally, all references to the word ‘gender’ were modified ‘sex’; to ‘men’ or ‘women’; ‘males’ or ‘females’; or ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ as appropriate.”

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights “removed the ‘universal’ bathroom signs at headquarters,” and the American Battle Monuments Commission “revised its internal policies, documents, and forms to replace ‘gender’ with ‘sex.’”

Public Records Reveal How Agencies Complied With Trump's Anti-Trans Order DOL memo Public Records Reveal How Agencies Complied With Trump's Anti-Trans Order EPA Memo We also obtained a mass email that the EPA sent to its employees instructing them to remove pronouns from their email signatures and informing them that “the agency prohibits Employee Resource Groups that promote unlawful DEIA initiatives.”

The full memos are available here:

Department of Labor Environmental Protection Agency U.S. Commission on Civil Rights American Battle Monuments Commission A federal judge has ruled that DOGE itself must release records under federal records laws, but the case is still being litigated.

4
 
 

What would a force hostile to the United States—a nation whose power has been the envy of the world for more than seven decades—do if it were able to set up an influential pipeline for policy ideas directly to the White House? Or, better yet, if it could somehow burrow into the mind of its president?

With so many points of U.S. strength, it is hard to know where to begin. One might start by fanning a backlash against the long-standing, if halting, trend in U.S. society toward inclusiveness, which has gradually sought to bring disfavored groups into the fold of the country’s prosperity. This might include waging a war against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives—one that, in its most Orwellian dimension, would extend to policing the use of words such as “bias,” “privilege,” and “equality” in government agencies.

5
6
 
 

geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/26868492

geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/26865628

Zoom in: Newly confirmed Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement that since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, "Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment on their campuses— only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them."

She said universities must comply with all federal anti-discrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. "For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus," McMahon added. "Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer."

Editor's note: This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

7
 
 

geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/27179434

“Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “We will not yield on this commitment.”

Most of the new inquiries are focused on colleges’ partnerships with the PhD Project, a nonprofit that helps students from underrepresented groups get degrees in business with the goal of diversifying the business world.

8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
 
 

"The whole #NIH system has gone down repeatedly. I assume someone is messing with the backend.This threat is coming from the inside."-CO Bueno"PubMed is down It's run by the NIH & the main way to search for academic papers.If this isn't a temp. thing, & is a #TrumpMusk doing, academics around the world are royally screwed right now."-N Stone"As the NIH-run lifeline for accessing academic #research, this isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s a crisis for researchers worldwide."-GP#USPol

19
20
21
22
23
24
25
view more: next ›