Scientists are mad! And they’re organizing. The attacks we’ve been hearing about from Nancy, Gordy, and Sarah are chaotic, they’re fast, and part of their intention is to overwhelm and exhaust us. Here are four strategies that we’re deploying at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and that I’m seeing across the scientific community.
Sourcing and sharing resources to support federal scientists who are being threatened and pushed out by the administration. Very early on, many organizations (including unions and legal organizations) developed guidance and resources on knowing your rights and procedures like making a note to the record, and how to find lawyers, job searching support, even mental health support for federal science workers. Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, Democracy Forward, and the Federal Unionist Network have been huge assets for federal science workers and science organizations as we come together to address threats to science and science-based decision making.
Calling out attacks on science and scientists publicly, and highlighting what this means for people across the country. UCS helped organize 54 scientific societies to call on Congress to protect federal funding and push back against scientist harassment. There have been other letters and statements from scientific leaders, some public and some behind the scenes, pushing back against attacks on programs and initiatives that generally have a lot of support from the public, like clean drinking water, food inspections, preventing toxic chemicals from going into our consumer goods, weather forecasts.
Second part of this is highlighting the impacts across the country. UCS, scientific societies, and so many other organizations are collecting stories from federal scientists about what it means that their research has been defunded, or their team has been fired, or the future of their project is uncertain.
What we know about good storytelling: it connects to shared values (creating a better future for our children, leaving the earth better than we found it, embracing curiosity and innovation), it is specific and speaks from personal experience, and it identifies both a problem and a solution. We’ve been collecting stories from scientists, federal workers, and people impacted by cuts to science agencies around the country, and are working with them to get those stories into local media and elected officials. Scientific societies and organizations are also collecting stories and connecting those who are impacted to reporters and decision makers to help them understand the impacts being felt around the country.
Fighting back against efforts to politicize or eliminate scientific roles or agencies in the federal government: Organizations like the American Geophysical Union have joined with federal employee unions as a plaintiff in a lawsuit arguing that the firings of probationary employees were illegal and that downstream impacts of reduced federal scientific expertise and funding on research has harmed the economy, public health, environment, and national security. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with scientific societies, but this is a Big Deal. Scientific societies do not sue the federal government very often. UCS is also working with legal partners and has filed a lawsuit against DOGE.
Finally, there’s building and demonstrating public support for scientists and science-based agencies. Many of you saw the Stand Up for Science rallies a few weeks ago, but there’s been rallies popping up all around the country especially near federal agencies. These rallies are CRUCIAL to demonstrating to the media, to Congress, and to the administration that we will not normalize what is happening, and we will continue to fight. Storytelling also ties into this need for building and demonstrating public support, because we need to talk about these impacts in Massachusetts and around the country.