Donald Trump¡¯s efforts to place ¡°overseers¡± inside US universities and grants agencies will undermine scientific research and prove difficult to dismantle, experts have warned.

By withholding federal funds,?the president has already successfully installed an ¡°independent monitor¡± at Columbia University?to resolve ongoing disputes for three years. Harvard University has been lobbying hard to avoid the same fate as part of its own negotiations with the White House,?.

Mary Feeney, a public affairs professor at Arizona State University, told?̽»¨ÊÓƵ?that the president cannot legally put a political appointee at a university but he was gaining power through extortion.

¡°Universities are choosing to play this game with him, but they are not legally required to.

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¡°The only reason the US president has any power over universities is because they the rely on federal grant funding for research funds and student tuition.?They are just making things up and doing what they want, because?no one is willing to stop them.¡±

Feeney said some universities will move away from federal funding and look to other places to support research funding and ¡°drastically cut back on STEM activities¡±. This will devastate the local and national economic strength of the US, she warned.

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A??on improving oversight of federal grants?decreed that each federal agency should appoint someone to review discretionary grants to ¡°ensure that they are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest¡±.

Trump¡¯s order said that federal grants have?¡°, trained doctoral candidates in critical race theory, and developed transgender-sexual-education programs¡± and highlighted the replication crisis and data falsification scandals at top colleges.

¡°There is a strong need to strengthen oversight and coordination of, and to streamline, agency grant-making to address these problems, prevent them from recurring, and ensure greater accountability for use of public funds more broadly.¡±

The order ¡°serves the purpose of further eroding our nation¡¯s ability to conduct and support scientific research across various fields¡±, said Joan Scott, professor emerita in the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study.

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It will ¡°replace experts with ideologically driven political appointees who have no expertise in science or academic research¡±, said Scott, also a member of the American Association of University Professors¡¯ committee on academic freedom.

Feeney said it was part of the Trump administration¡¯s playbook to ¡°destroy the administrative state, science, and higher education¡±.

¡°I imagine they already have people at the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation making sure projects they view as ¡®woke¡¯ do not get support.

¡°They will likely have some non-scientist making decisions based on their political views to ensure funds don¡¯t go to universities that won¡¯t do their bidding, research that threatens their worldview, or to states they see as the opposition.¡±

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She warned that even if the Democratic party wins the next presidential election, it could struggle to repair the system to ensure that the executive branch is ¡°filled with experts instead of self-serving political patrons¡±.

And Sylvia Hurtado, a distinguished professor at UCLA, said: ¡°The process Trump is trying to break ensures excellence?in research and training.?All the cuts and executive orders also convey¡­a clear distrust of American universities as well as the renowned and aspiring scientists within them.

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¡°It will be?a barrier to great progress and current cuts and freezes?will affect the production of life-saving innovations and our training of the next generation of scientists.¡±

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com