Here comes the Spider-Man. Today’s cover image is one of the very few images drawn for Marvel by the famed French artist Mœbius
This week we have news out of the Department of Education, an update on federal budget negotiations, and some scattered items from NIH. Scroll on down to the supplementary materials for news of a forthcoming writing project.
On Monday the Department of Education issued a letter which calls upon every institute of higher education in the United States to publish a “clear public statement outlining its commitment to implementing reforms that will help restore public trust in higher education.”
As reported in Bloomberg over the weekend, the Department’s letter was written in collaboration with the Association for American Universities and leadership of four Universities (WashU, Arizona State, University of Kansas, Johns Hopkins).
The topics to be addressed in the statement include admissions practices, academic free speech, affordability, academic standards, research security, and the prioritization of American interests.
Over the weekend, the senate unveiled a stopgap budget package that would keep federal agencies funded through the first week of December. If passed in its current form, the bill would delay the Office of Management and Budgets proposed policy changes related to federal grant making.
According to reporting in Stat, the National Institutes of Health intends to limit its eligibility for its “Pathways to Independence” (K99) award to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and noncitizen nationals.
Director of the Department of Health and Human Services (and newly minted cooking show host) RFK Jr. made quite the appearance on CNN over the weekend. Meanwhile, the President appears poised to release a new executive order on the nation’s vaccine schedule and autism research.
As reported in Politico, Steven Quay (author of this book) may be the next director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This was the post previously held by Anthony Fauci.
Science has another report on the recent termination of health disparity-focused grants at NIH.
The Department of Justice has announced that is has determined that Duke University school of law violated title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in its admissions practices. In their announcement of this finding, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon is quoted “Duke Law School doesn’t get a free pass to discriminate against white and Asian students simply because it thinks it has good intentions.” The school and the DOJ will now enter into settlement negotiations.
Supplementary Materials
Next week I’ll be starting a fun(?) little project where I try to contextualize some of the recent developments affecting the American scientific research enterprise.
Even doing these weekly news updates, it has been tough to keep everything straight. So this is partially a way for me to make sense of it all. I’ll post updates on here, but the actual text will live outside the week-to-week news updates.
…And yes, there will be more than a few footnotes as I try to maintain my composure.