The entire 12-person board that manages the Fulbright scholarship program quit Wednesday, accusing the Trump administration of illegal political interference.
The group oversee the 80-year-old program designed to both fund American students’ and academics’ foreign exchanges and to bring talented foreign scholars, students and artists to the U.S. It is ultimately overseen by Marco Rubio’s State Department but is legally supposed to be independent.
The development was first reported by The New York Times then confirmed in a statement from the board on Substack.
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The scholarship was established by Congress in 1946 to promote cultural exchange. At any given time, there are about 8,000 grantees.
The Fulbright board railed against the Trump appointees’ alleged interference in a statement released Wednesday.
It accused the administration of “unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago.”
The board argues that it has the legal right to operate independently from the administration and hold final say over who receives the awards. The Trump administration “usurped the authority” of the board, it said.
Political appointees at the State Department, whose budget funds the program, canceled around 200 scholarships awarded to American researchers for projects abroad, sources told the Times. In most cases, the Trump administration took issue with the projects’ topics.
Approximately 1,200 scholarships awarded to foreign nationals to conduct research in the United States are also under review, according to the Times.
Members of the board are appointed by the president, and all of its current members were appointed by Joe Biden.
The Times reported that the board was also concerned about a budget submitted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that would slash funding for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which includes Fulbright, from $691 million to $50 million.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, the State Department called the board “partisan political appointees of the Biden administration.”
“The claim that the Fulbright Hayes Act affords exclusive and final say over Fulbright Applications to the Fulbright board is false,” a spokesperson said. “This is nothing but a political stunt attempting to undermine President Trump.”
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly delivered a matching message, telling the Beast: “President Trump, not the Fulbright Board, was elected by the American people to ensure all foreign policy initiatives align with our national interests.”
The head of the State Department’s office for public diplomacy and public affairs, which houses Fulbright, is Darren Beattie, a former first-term Donald Trump aide who was fired after it emerged that he spoke at a conference for white nationalists.
Beattie, who became an influential MAGA journalist, was hired to serve under Rubio in February, even though resurfaced posts showed that in 2021 he spread a rumor pushed by the far right that his future boss frequented gay nightclubs.
Since his return to office, Trump has waged war on the country’s top universities, which he claims are too liberal and have failed to adequately combat antisemitism on campus.
Right now, the administration is locked in battle with Harvard University. Trump has frozen billions in federal funding to the school, demanding that Harvard agree to a lengthy list of demands. He also sought to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students but was blocked by a judge.
Last month, Rubio ordered U.S. embassies to hit pause on issuing new student visas as the State Department established a new social media screening process.
