National Day of Action Will Protest Cuts to Life-Saving Research and Critical Programs
Speakouts – Wednesday, February 19
- New Brunswick/Piscataway, 12 p.m. – Life Sciences Building Atrium (145 Bevier Rd.) on Busch campus.
- Newark, 11 a.m. – Outside the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (30 Twelfth Ave., in front of Smith Library) on the Newark campus.
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—Scientists, educators, and staff at Rutgers University will gather for speakouts as part of a national day of campus actions on Wednesday, February 19, to call attention to the devastating impact that the Trump administration’s funding cuts, freezes, and policy changes will have on life-saving medical research and public higher education.
The actions on two Rutgers campuses are sponsored by unions representing more than 10,000 educators, researchers, clinicians, and others. Around the country, higher ed unions and labor organizations expect thousands to attend the “Hands Off Our Healthcare, Research, and Jobs” rallies organized for Wednesday. Media outlets are welcome to attend.
“Every day, the Trump administration is announcing new attacks that will disrupt and ultimately wreck the public higher education system that we and our colleagues around the country have worked to build over many decades,” said Todd Wolfson, national president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT.
“The public needs to know that this will have a devastating impact far beyond our campuses—in red states and blue states alike,” Wolfson said. “Life-saving medical research is being strangled. Accepted facts in science and any number of the other fields we teach are being called into question. And the Republican witch-hunt against DEI policies will lead to resegregation on our campuses and in our society if it isn’t stopped.”
At Rutgers, scientists overseeing critical research projects are facing new uncertainties every day about whether their work can continue. “Research scientists also teach undergraduates and graduate students, both in the classroom and with critical hands-on work in their research labs,” said Tara Matise, a distinguished professor and chair of the Genetics department at Rutgers. “Our ability to remain a top school in the biomedical sciences is now at great risk. We also hire postdoctoral fellows and lab technicians. If NIH funding is cut, labs will have to downsize, and some will close, creating a sudden and large group of unemployed scientists.”
Matthew Buckley, an associate professor of Physics and Astronomy, said, “However people voted in 2024, I don’t think anyone was voting to cut funding for cancer research—but that’s exactly what’s happening right now. US investment in basic science has given us medicines that save children’s lives. It gave us the technologies we use to grow our food, get to work, and even enjoy our free time. Grants from the National Institutes of Health and other agencies train the next generation of medical doctors and scientists. The unprecedented freezes and cuts to grants ultimately threaten our health care and our economy.”
Several researchers will be among the speakers at the rallies on Busch campus in New Brunswick/Piscataway (Life Sciences Building Atrium, 145 Bevier Rd.) and at Rutgers-Newark (outside the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, 30 Twelfth Ave., in front of Smith Library). Rutgers-Camden professors and others will join a “Hands Off Our Healthcare, Research, and Jobs” rally in Philadelphia on Wednesday at 12 p.m. outside Republican Sen. David McCormick’s office (2000 Market St.).
The unions organizing the Rutgers speakouts are: Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents more than 6,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and counselors; the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, which represents some 2,800 adjunct lecturers; and AAUP-BHSNJ, which represents 1,400 biomedical faculty in Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences facilities throughout the state.
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