Fordham University professor Asif Siddiqi had his research funding revoked by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). This action comes amid the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) attempt to cancel hundreds of research grants across several federal agencies, including the NEH, National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Health (NIH) and more.
Since April 8, DOGE has canceled over 1,400 NEH grants totaling over $427 million, according to a database by The Association for Computers and the Humanities. Now, Siddiqi, professor of history at Fordham, has been affected by these cancellations.
Siddiqi was awarded a $60,000 grant by the NEH in mid-December to fund a project on the negative impacts of space exploration on the environment and local communities. He said the funding would allow him to take a sabbatical from Fordham next year, during which he would travel to Asia and Africa to conduct further research and write a book about his findings.
“I was very pleased to hear that I got an award to support my research,” Siddiqi said. “The project was looking at a global view of the varieties and forms of damage and dispossession caused by many infrastructure on the ground to support space, such as tracking stations and launch sites.”
Siddiqi received an email from the NEH on April 3 informing him that his research funding had been canceled. The letter said that Siddiqi’s research did not align with Trump’s agenda for the federal government.
“Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination,” the letter said. “Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities.”
Siddiqi said he had heard about professors at other institutions having their funding revoked, however, the cancellation of his grant still came as a surprise.
“There was no hint. I mean, many of us guessed that something might happen, but every time I contacted the NEH, they said ‘no, everything is fine,’” Siddiqi said.
Following the cancellation of his NEH grant, Siddiqi is unsure about the future of his research. While Fordham is also funding Siddiqi’s research through a faculty fellowship, the loss of the NEH grant will significantly impact the future of his project. He said the remaining research and the book’s writing will likely be delayed, but hopefully not canceled.
“It’s a mixture of feelings. One, of course, a great deal of disappointment because I worked really hard to do this,” Siddiqi said. “I’m still working to figure out what I can do. I think at the very least [the research] will be delayed, but I hope not canceled. But I don’t know.”
Siddiqi said Fordham has been very supportive following the cancelation of his funding. According to Fordham’s page “Updates on Evolving Political Landscape,” $600,000 worth of research grants to Fordham have already been canceled. The page advises researchers to continue with their currently funded research and states that the university will provide help and guidance should that funding be revoked.
“Fordham advises researchers to proceed with their federally funded research projects according to the terms of their existing contracts and grant agreements,” the website says. “It is important to note that changes in federal policy require careful interpretation, and the University will provide guidance as it becomes available. In the event that a federal agency issues a stop-work order, certification request, or provides specific direction to discontinue DEI-related activities within a funded project, connect immediately with Bill Colona, Special Assistant to the Provost, for guidance.”
Siddiqi said the cancellation of his funding represents a larger story about the Trump administration’s attack on the humanities and higher education. He said that while there are other private funding sources for academic research, public funding is very beneficial because it shows federal support for the humanities field. According to Siddiqi, research is very important and is impossible to do without funding.
“It will have a lot of, you know, deleterious, negative effects for a while, I think. So it’s gonna be hard to recover from this,” Siddiqi said. “Research is the foundation of our work. Whatever field you’re in you have to do the research first before you write about it, so if you take away funding to do the research you can’t actually produce any actual scholarship, so that’s why it’s a really critical sort of piece of the puzzle in the sense that without research we can’t do what we are here to do as academics.”
