The Board that supervises the Fulbright program, the prestigious exchanges between American and foreigners, resigned on Wednesday, accusing the political interference administration of President Donald Trump.
The members of the Board, nominated by successive presidents, expressed alarm on “injecting politics and ideological mandates” into a long non -partisan program.
“The current administration usurped the authority of the Board and has denied the Fulbright Awards to a substantial number of people who were selected for the academic year 2025-2026,” said the members of the Board in a declaration of resignation published online.
“The administration is also currently under 1,200 Fulbright receivers additional to an unauthorized review process and could reject more,” he said.
“We believe that these actions not only contradict the statute, but are antithetical to the Fulbright mission and values, including freedom of expression and academic freedom, that the Congress specified in the Statute.”
The members of the Board chose to resign instead of “supporting the unprecedented actions that we believe are inadmissible according to the law, compromise national interests and integrity of the United States, and undermine the mission and demand the congress established for the Fulbright program almost 80 years ago,” they said.
The State Department did not immediately respond to Reuters‘Request for comments.
He New York Times He informed that the Board had approved the requests of around 200 US professors and researchers who were ready to work in universities and research institutions in other countries this summer, and the State Department was intended to send acceptance letters to applicants in April.
On the other hand, the members of the Board learned that the Department’s Public Diplomacy Office had begun to send rejection letters to academics based on the issues of their investigation.
“The Congress ordered the Fulbright Bipartisan Board to be a control over the Executive and ensure that the students, the researchers and educators are not subject to the political favoritism for which this administration is known,” he said in a Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire, the Democratic Classification in the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, in a statement.
“While I understand and respect the Fulbright Bipartisan Board for giving up mass instead of granting credibility to a politicized process, I am painfully aware that today’s measure will change the quality of Fulbright programming and independent research that has made our country a leader in so many fields,” he added.
The Fulbright program, which was established in 1946, sends postgraduate students, academics, artists, teachers and professionals abroad to study, conduct research or teach English in approximately 160 countries worldwide.
The program grants approximately 8,000 competitive subsidies based on merits every year in most academic disciplines and study fields, according to their website.
The name of the late Senator J. William Fulbright, the scholarship was seen as an important source of soft power of the United States by bringing leaders to US universities and sending Americans abroad.
The Trump administration has fought the war against American universities, which vice president JD Vance described before assuming office as “the enemy” due to its influence and often opinions of the Academy.
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Trump has reduced billions of dollars in federal research funds for the main universities, about his alleged dull response to anti -Semitism during protests against the devastating military offensive of Israel in Gaza.
The Trump administration has also aggressively revoked visas for students, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio using a dark law that allows him to eliminate foreigners considered against the interests of the foreign policy of the United States.
Rubio recently suspended visa processing for foreign students, which are an important source of income for American universities, so the State Department can increase the detection of publications on the social networks of applicants.
