Gravy Train Ends: National Science Foundation Grants to DEI Related Projects Plunge Under Trump

The Trump administration continues to quietly unwind the noxious, and in many cases illegal DEI-centric policies of the Great Awokening.

A recently released report unveiled by the Washington Free Beacon found that National Science Foundation grants containing “DEI language” have not only dipped from the highs of the previous administration, but they’ve also plummeted to levels not seen in decades.

“The data, compiled by DeepAudit, a nonprofit specializing in AI-assisted research, shows that the percentage of awards with DEI terms is at its lowest point since 2001,” Aaron Sibarium at the Free Beacon wrote on Wednesday.

The National Science Foundation is responsible for about a quarter of all federal dollars that go to colleges and universities. So, these grants represent a considerable amount of money.

The Free Beacon noted that the agency’s mission is to “promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense; and for other purposes.””

Unfortunately, that last, “other” category became all-consuming and the National Science Foundation was converted into an engine of wokeness.

The Free Beacon noted that in 2021 under President Joe Biden it awarded “$3.4 billion in grants that contained at least one of the following terms: ‘equity,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ ‘gender,’ ‘marginalize,’ ‘underrepresented,’ or ‘disparity.’” In 2025 programs with that terminology received only “$400 million, an 88-percent decrease.”

That’s not all. The decline isn’t just wiping out the upsurge in DEI-focused grants under Biden. It shows that there has been a reversal in the larger trend that made DEI nearly the central focus of government policy.

“DeepAudit used AI to analyze the abstracts of successful NSF grant applications from 1990 to 2025,” Free beacon reported. “It found that the prevalence of DEI terminology had fallen across all grant categories, including education and human resources, areas where the language was pervasive. In fact, over 50 percent of awards dispersed in those areas between 2018 and 2024 included DEI language.”

The DeepAudit director of technology Leif Rasmussen acknowledged that it’s possible that many of these grant projects may have dodged government rules on DEI by changing their terminology.

Undoubtedly, at least some of that is going on.

DEI remains unquestioned dogma throughout higher education and in many elite institutions. They won’t drop it without a struggle.

However, it also seems unlikely that this huge dropoff is merely due to changing terminology.

The Trump administration has made eliminating DEI and keeping better tabs on federal money a focus across many different agencies.

That represents a monumental shift in this country.

To be blunt, leftist nonsense that once got an unwitting blank check from the American people is now being scrutinized and eliminated like never before. It’s easy to see why Democrats and all manner of left-leaning groups are panicking about the changes.

The self-reinforcing gravy train is over.

Since the early 2000s, wokeness and DEI became the language of the West’s ruling elites. In many cases, so-called diversity initiatives became the justification for the existence of a mushrooming number of destructive programs.

A massive, all-consuming industry had been created to reinforce a particular brand of leftwing ideology and pay the salaries of our new, noxious pseudo elite.

The basic formula for how to remain on the dole was simple: create something useless, slap a buzzword like “marginalized” and “underrepresentation” to it and voila, you’d get federal money for whatever nonsense you were “working” on.

It particularly helped to be among the categories of the oppressed.

Not only did this system become self-reinforcing, but it also pushed out any kind of dissent or work that didn’t intersect with its prerogatives. That’s what makes it so insidious as ideological commitments are merged with financial incentives.

Much like under communism, effort and dynamism have been crushed in the name of political correctness.

That’s why what the Trump administration is doing is so important in the National Science Foundation and elsewhere.

Yes, there has been a national “vibe shift” as Americans finally rebelled against the absurdity of DEI. Putting President Donald Trump back in the White House was as clear a sign as any that the country had had enough.

But unlike the last time around, the Trump administration is truly sucking the air out of the balloon. No longer will success be tied to ideological, racial, and gender box checking.

By pulling monetary support from and putting legal pressure on institutions that discriminate based on race and identity, the administration is creating a larger and hopefully more enduring counterrevolution that will lead America back on the path toward merit, fairness, and equality before the law.