UPHEAVAL CONTINUES AT PROMINENT UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES
Defining meritocracy at schools of higher learning
This is why an article in The New York Sun by Professor Emeritus of Law at Harvard University, Alan Dershowitz, JD, attracted our attention because it made a crucially important point: "Universities need to come clean about the real meaning of 'meritocracy,' as the diversity debate roils higher education" (1).
As he noted in the article, one of the demands of the Trump administration from Harvard University was that the institution reject the concepts of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and accept meritocracy in the admission of students and hiring criteria. Yet meritocracy can have different meanings: As he explained, in hiring pilots, surgeons, athletes, stock pickers, etc., what counts is the candidate's current ability to do the best job. Yet a second definition can take a somewhat longer view by looking at a candidate's likely development, trajectory, as he called it, which would, for example, apply to student admissions, the hiring of faculty, or the recruitment of an orchestra member. A third definition, in turn, is very different because it is largely a moral one, basing the decision to hire on past events that demonstrated that the candidate deserves to be hired, obviously judging the candidate not only on their future potential but also on past experiences and especially difficulties she/he overcame.
He then – interestingly – argues that institutions should be given discretion in how they define meritocracy; however, once decided and published, they should not be allowed to cheat, which is what he feels is exactly what universities (and other institutions) are doing these days. And they cheat because their real goal is not a meritocracy but to fill certain quotas (currently at many universities, for example, 13-17% for Black student admissions), which he then describes as "illegal, unconstitutional, and even immoral" (1).
Sports teams, he noted, in contrast, don't care about race; all they care about is performance, even if it means that all the team is Black or White. Most people will pick their physicians based on their current skills and not based on their sex, race, or any other criteria. In short, he is correct; it all starts with how we define meritocracy!
Reference
Dershowitz A. The New York Sun. Updated June 17, 2025. https://www.nysun.com/article/as-diversity-debate-roils-higher-education-universities-need-to-come-clean-about-the-real-meaning-of-meritocracy
Cutting federal grant support
The government has been cutting research grants to universities all over the country, and not only to Harvard, even though Nature magazine recently noted that Harvard researchers have been especially reeling as the Trump administration cut 1,000 grants (1). But virtually every research university has switched into emergency budgeting mode, simply based on the fact that the federal government has reduced so-called "indirect overhead costs" for all grants to maximally 15% of direct costs. For many of the major research universities that are used to indirect costs of often over 60% of direct costs, this has been a devastating development, resulting in significant budget cuts in such routine items as conference travel.
A recent article explained in detail the indirect costs (2). What in federally funded R&D direct costs should be in comparison to indirect costs has been a subject of debate since the 1940s. As of May 2025, indirect cost reimbursements for institutions of higher education were typically pre-negotiated with the federal government and varied between 30% and 70%. But more recently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Defense (DOD) released policies that would impose a 15% indirect cost rate on all awards. Congress is now debating the potential consequences and whether and to what degree the federal government should support indirect costs.
Limiting federal funding for indirect costs could save significant amounts for federal agencies that could be used to increase the number of research projects funded by the federal government. Limits could also potentially incentivize operational efficiency. On the other hand, such changes could have a significant negative impact on some, especially smaller public research institutions that lack private-sector support or endowments. Allowing indirect cost rates to continue to vary might limit Congress's ability to address longstanding critiques, alleging a lack of transparency in the use of indirect cost reimbursements. Where this discussion will end, it will be interesting to see.
References
Garisto D. Nature 2025; 642:15-16
Gallo ME, Harris L. Congress.GOV. May 16, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48540
Can you mandate "gold standard science," and a Justice Department investigation of medical journals
Since President Trump on May 23, 2025, signed an Executive Order mandating the overhaul of research-integrity policies in the federal government to ensure that "the federal government promotes transparent, rigorous, and impactful 'gold standard science.'" That "gold standard science" can be mandated is apparently what the administration believes.
If only it were that easy!
And it, of course, isn't – and in some ways, that is too bad because medical and science publishing is fully deserving of the increasing scrutiny it is receiving and could greatly benefit from interventions to improve many of the products this industry is producing.
Unsurprisingly, the response President Trump received from the research community was not very friendly. According to a News article in Nature magazine, thousands apparently signed an open letter against the U.S. president's order, claiming concern about political interference in science (who those thousands were is not clear) (1).
As the Journal article noted, the Executive Order stated that research integrity issues, including high-profile retractions and the inability to reproduce many scientific studies, have caused the public to lose faith in science (and medicine).
Paranoia and hypocrisy were rather obvious when Nature, in this article, claimed that "some who spoke to the journal worried that language in the order opened the door to political interference in U.S. science" (1). And this, after all the government interference during the COVID pandemic, is now established as much broader than ever suspected.
The CHR's medical director and chief scientist, Norbert Gleicher, MD, recently addressed in these pages the politicization of medical and science journals in considerable detail. This article in Nature magazine is, of course, just another example of exactly the kind of politicization of medical and science journals that Gleicher's article tried to warn about.
One can obviously not mandate a "gold standard science" because such a standard simply does not exist. But both medicine and science, in general, would greatly benefit from some self-reflection, considering how obviously conflicted so much, especially the currently published medical literature is in so many ways. And the literature in reproductive medicine is no exception.
And very much relating to this Executive Order but also to the above-noted article regarding the politicization of medical publishing, the Trump administration has, as The Wall Street Journal recently reported, (2) also honed in on several U.S. medical journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Journal of the Medical Association (JAMA).
The Justice Department – rather unprecedentedly – in April of this year, sent letters to 15 of the country's leading medical and science journals inquiring about "fraud," political bias," and "censorship" in these journals. A letters from a U.S attorney addressed to one specific journal is quoted in the article to have stated that, "it has come to my attentions that more and more journals and publications are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates" (signed by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia). And this is actually exactly one of the points Gleicher made in his above-noted prior article in The Reproductive Times.
The article in the Wall Street Journal also pointed out that current FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, MBA (the "Three Musketeers of Healthcare") – especially during and after the COVID pandemic – have all been outspoken critics of medical journals and of how they often reported alleged scientific facts.
Though, as The Reproductive Times really, since its inception, has on many occasions pointed out, we, to a significant degree, agree with this criticism. The Wall Street Journal article alleged that the Justice Department likely took things a little too far when a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney noted that the letters were sent in response to "legitimate public grievances" (so far, ok!) but then claimed that, "you have a bunch of leftists who are sitting on big pots of money from pharma, and they all entertain each other and publish their friends" (of course, somewhat of an exaggeration). And he then went on to say, "… they were basically publishing lies."
Unsurprisingly unhappy about receiving one of those 15 letters, Eric Rubin, MD, the editor-in-chief of the NEJM, called the letter an intimidation tactic and, according to the Wall Street Journal article, reemphasized the medical journal's rigorous peer review, editorial independence, and First Amendment rights as evidence for its unbiased conduct. Except, of course, that none of these three arguments really addressed the three concerns expressed in the letters sent by the Justice Department to the 15 medical journals, which were fraud, political bias, and censorship by editors and/or publishers.
Interestingly, The Lancet, which, likely because of its British genealogy, did not receive one of the 15 Justice Department letters, nevertheless, felt obliged to dedicate one of its rare anonymous Editorials to those letters, describing them as an "obvious ruse to strike fear into journals and impinge on their right to independent editorial oversight." Still, this opinion, of course, leaves it open to interpretation of what "independent" means.
And, if The Lancet considers, for example, editorial oversight by its longstanding and still current editor-in-chief, Richard Charles Horton, BSc, MB, ChB, to be unbiased and balanced, as Gleicher extensively documents in his above-noted article in this issue of the VOICE, then we also have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale!
In short, as is so often the case when politics becomes involved, opinions at the extremes are usually both wrong. Again confirmed, in this case, the Trumpian right is obviously mistaken in believing that "gold standard science" is just a whiff away from execution after a Presidential Executive Order. The Left, when prominent editors-in-chief of even more prominent journals, like Rubin (NEJM) and Horton (Lancet) – and there is quite a long list of additional editors – lack institutional and emotional inside into their positions of professional leadership to such a significant degree that they don't even appear to understand what the letters from the government are talking about.
And they, of course, also completely are missing the very obvious link the current administration has come to recognize between decades-old misdirections in education in the country's institutions of higher learning, often having led to indoctrination rather than the education of our youth and the other side – in a continuum – political indoctrination rather than the education of medical providers and scientists by politically-driven medical and science journals, their editors, and their publishing organizations.
This is what the 15 letters likely were really all about, and just as the time has come to take back our institution of higher learning from cults on the extreme Left of the political spectrum, so does medical practice have to be recovered from wokeism and indoctrination and that, of course, also includes reproductive medicine.
One final point from the Wall Street Journal article (2) is worth mentioning: According to a 2024 Pew survey, there are considerable differences in how Democrats and Republicans view research scientists: 80% of Democrats but only 52% of Republicans view them as "honest." No wonder, therefore, that the scrutiny of the conduct of science in the country has increased under the current Republican administration.
References
Tollefson J, Garisto D. Nature 2025;642:13-14
Paul P. The Wall Street Journal. June 14-15m 2025, https://www.wsj.com/science/how-scientific-journals-became-magas-latest-target-9874b6f7?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAhRKUWjb8n6VzMFfKCqWnG78ZcoNWsM77P2