The 12-members of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board abruptly resigned en masse Wednesday after the Trump administration overrode the program’s Congressional mandate and rejected a “substantial number” of applicants already approved for the upcoming academic year.
“The current administration has usurped the authority of the board” and undermined the program’s role in fostering international cooperation, diplomacy and academic excellence,” the board said in a statement announcing the resignation was, “effective immediately.”
State Department officials have yanked already-approved scholarships for nearly 200 American professors and researchers who were poised to travel abroad for stints at research institutions and universities, The New York Times first reported — about one-fifth of the 900 that had been approved. Another 1,200 foreign Fulbright recipients were subjected to an “unauthorized review process” that could lead to even more rejections, the board said.
The State Department’s political appointees may have acted illegally, the board maintained, noting the congressional act creating the Fulbright program “clearly specified that the Fulbright Board has final approval authority of applicants.”
The rejections seemed to be based on topics the would-be recipients were planning to study, covering “biology, engineering, architecture, agriculture, crop sciences, animal sciences, biochemistry, medical sciences, music and history,” the board said.
Under the Fulbright-Hayes Act of 1961 that created the program, the 12-member board is appointed to three-year terms by the sitting president as slots become available. Since Trump’s first-term appointees have rotated out, it’s currently made up of Biden appointees. The year-long selection process is led by nonpartisan career embassy and State Department staffers. About 8,000 scholarships are granted annually in more than 160 countries and throughout the U.S. to students, scholars and professionals in a variety of fields.
A current State Department official called the group resignation a “political stunt” by Biden appointees designed to undermine Trump and called it “ridiculous” to assume they would have final say both in determining academic suitability and “alignment with President Trump’s executive orders.”
The board noted its attempts to communicate with State Department officials had been met with silence.
“To continue to serve after the administration has consistently ignored the Board’s request that they follow the law would risk legitimizing actions we believe are unlawful and damage the integrity of this storied program and America’s credibility abroad,” the board’s statement said. It left them no choice but to resign “rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago.”
With News Wire Services
