As many Bi-Co Students wrapped up midterms and headed home for spring break, other students and professors from the colleges’ STEM departments headed into Philadelphia for the Stand Up for Science rally. The rally, held on Friday, March 7, was one of over 30 similar protests being held in cities across the U.S. Attendees use these rallies to protest budget and grant cuts, as well as firings, leveled by the Trump administration against a myriad of federally supported research groups.
“We’ve been planning the rally for 3 weeks now,” says Amanda Rabinowitz, a neuroscientist and one of the main organizers of the protest. “We are concerned about the most recent attacks on the scientific infrastructure in the United States and of the widespread effects these attacks are gonna have.”
As these government agencies have suffered severe cuts to their federal funding, scientists including Rabinowitz have expressed concerns about the potential fallout of these decisions. “In Pennsylvania alone, the NIH [National Institution of Health] has brought in over 3 billion dollars of funding. In 2023 alone, it was over 2 billion dollars. … That supports over 22,000 jobs in this state and has a return of over 5 billion dollars to the economy.”
Ellis Stevens ‘27, a biochemistry major, was one of the Bryn Mawr students who attended the demonstration. “With all of the funding cuts and all of the legislation that threatens the scope of research, and just the ability to do it in the first place, it’s starting to get really scary.” She said, “I’m someone who has several chronic genetic illnesses … so, I think as someone who, A.) wants to go into medicine and B.) has a lot of experience on the other side, as the patient, it’s really, really important to me that these crucial studies are being funded. And also, I just absolutely love time in the lab.”
Another Bryn Mawr student, who chose to remain anonymous in order to keep their name offline in the current climate, said, “doing research is my dream; it’s what I’ve been working so hard for here [at Bryn Mawr]. I’m taking all these classes, I’m applying to summer opportunities, I’m applying myself. I want to contribute to the human understanding of the world. One of the programs I applied to got canceled because of the proposed budget cuts to the NSF [National Science Foundation] and another one’s, like, on the rocks. So, I just feel like my whole future is really insecure right now.”
The protest was held on the North side of Philadelphia City Hall, the crowd taking up nearly all the space on the expansive pavement. Protestors’ signs varied from serious to grimly comical, featuring slogans such as “I’m a mad scientist,” “Keep Science Safe,” and “Science is for Everyone.”
The crowd watched and cheered as city council members, local scientists and students, and care providers spoke.
Organizers encouraged the crowd to get loud: “We want our voices to be heard from river to river. We want our elected officials in Harrisburg to hear us, and most importantly, we want our elected officials in Washington to hear us.”
Rabinowitz followed up with these statements: “we want to reignite the fire that started with the March for Science in 2017. We also want to remind people that they don’t have to feel despair. We have power, and we can display resistance.”
City Council member Jamie Gauthier praised Philadelphia’s scientists, saying, “the innovation that takes place in our community reverberates across the entire world.” Philadelphia houses a particularly large concentration of hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and medical research institutions.
Naoko Nielson, an Astrophysicist and professor at Drexel University, said, “curiosity [is] what makes us good scientists, and it’s also what makes democracy work. There’s a reason fascists target science; they know that people who want to learn and make things better are a threat [to them].”
Many demonstrators’ signs also praised diversity within scientific fields, underscoring the importance of intersectionality. Several of the speaker’s words reflected this.
“Science is for everyone and it is important- especially given the history of exclusion of certain groups in scientific infrastructure [and] research,” says Rabinowitz. “It is important that we actively pursue efforts to preserve and maintain a high degree of inclusion.”
Saleemah McNeil, a Reproductive Psychotherapist, spoke of the medical injustice faced by many Black women. The maternal mortality rate for Black women in the United States is nearly three times that of white women, at 69.9 out of 100,000 in 2021.
Eartha Mae Guthman, a neuroscientist, spoke about her experience as a transgender woman in science. She discussed how she is impacted by the Trump administration’s actions, saying, “to them I am not a scientist who happens to be trans. To them I am trans and cannot contribute to science because I am biased and unfit.”
“One of the reasons the United States is such a leader in scientific advancement is because of the massive government investment in … scientific infrastructure,” Rabinowitz stated. “I would encourage people to look up at the real impact of the federal government’s support of science in the United States. Cuts to the scientific infrastructure have a widespread effect on multiple sectors of society. They affect everyone, and make no mistake, it’s not going to end today.”
