America First Legal investigating NSF’s “leftist ideology”

America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit run by former members of President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration, is suing the National Science Foundation for records related to the agency’s prioritization of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

According to AFL’s lawsuit, the NSF received the records request in 2023 but has failed to produce them in a timely manner, an alleged violation of the Freedom of Information Act. 

The suit, filed Oct. 30 in federal court, comes after Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, published a report accusing the Biden-Harris administration of politicizing science. 

The report claims that since Biden took office in 2021, the NSF has awarded more than $2 billion in federal funding to thousands of scientific research projects that promoted DEI or “pushed neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle,” with such awards allegedly growing from 0.29 percent of all new grants in 2021 to 27 percent by 2024. 

“The Biden-Harris administration has hijacked billions in federal taxpayer funds meant for important scientific research to promote anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-American DEI and leftist ideology,” the AFL said in a news release. “Awarding taxpayer dollars to radical initiatives in the name of ‘science’ is the height of government weaponization, waste, fraud, and abuse. AFL will keep fighting to expose the Biden-Harris administration’s racism, to stop the misuse of taxpayer funds, and to protect the integrity of our taxpayer-funded research enterprise.”

AFL said it’s investigating the NSF’s support of DEI initiatives under the Biden-Harris administration, which included making a public records request in 2023 for résumés and other employee documentation “to better understand the background of the individuals appointed to the NSF,” according to the lawsuit. 

And those records are at the center of AFL’s complaint against the NSF, which AFL believes, if released, will support conservative claims that the Biden-Harris administration’s focus on DEI has compromised the scientific research enterprise. 

“Federally funded scientific research plays a critical role in our national security and economic well-being. Every dollar matters,” Reed D. Rubinstein, AFL’s senior vice president, said in the news release. “Building on Senator Cruz’s work, AFL’s oversight will identify the bad actors in the government and elsewhere, laying the foundation for accountability.”

The NSF did not respond to a request for comment by press time.