All members of the board that oversees the U.S. State Department's Fulbright Program, which facilitates international educational exchanges, have voted to resign over alleged political interference from President Donald Trump's administration, the board said on Wednesday.
The Trump administration had unlawfully "usurped the authority" of the board by denying awards to a "substantial number" of people who had already been selected for the 2025-2026 academic year through a yearlong, merit-based process, the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board said in a statement posted on the website Substack.
The department is also putting another 1,200 Fulbright recipients through an "unauthorized review process" that could lead to more rejections, according to the statement.
The board members chose to resign “rather than endorse 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," they said.
A senior State Department official accused the board members of being partisan political appointees from the administration of former President Joe Biden and called their mass resignation a "political stunt" meant to undermine Trump.
"It’s ridiculous to believe that these members would continue to have final say over the application process, especially when it comes to determining academic suitability and alignment with President Trump’s Executive Orders," the official said.
The Fulbright program, which was established in 1946, sends U.S. graduate students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals abroad to study, conduct research or teach English in approximately 160 countries worldwide.
The program awards approximately 8,000 competitive, merit-based grants each year in most academic disciplines and fields of study, according to its website.
The New York Times reported the board had approved the applications of around 200 American professors and researchers who were set to work at universities and research institutions in other countries this summer, and the State Department was meant to send acceptance letters to the applicants in April.
Instead, board members learned the department's Office of Public Diplomacy had begun sending rejection letters to the scholars based on the topics of their research.
"The bipartisan Fulbright Board was mandated by Congress to be a check on the executive and to ensure that students, researchers and educators are not subjected to the blatant political favoritism that this Administration is known for," Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
"While I understand and respect the bipartisan Fulbright Board for resigning en masse rather than grant credibility to a politicized process, I’m painfully aware that today’s move will change the quality of Fulbright programming and the independent research that has made our country a leader in so many fields," she added.
Since taking office for his second term in January, Trump's administration has undertaken a major overhaul of the State Department, enacted massive funding cuts for academic research, and curbed visas for foreign students.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
12 Comments
Blacklabel
Bipartisan? Nope.
12 members all appointed by Biden, including 4 as he was leaving office in 2025.
TaiwanIsNotChina
There is nothing Trump won't turn to brown matter.
Blacklabel
They chose to resign en masse.
What did Trump do?
Desert Tortoise
The State Department was cancelling scholarships to US students to study abroad and was imposing loyalty criteria to foreign students chosen to study in the US under a Fulbright Scholarship. They objected to the political interference as well they should.
Blacklabel
And they quit. Their choice.
plasticmonkey
Some people have moral integrity. Others see all choices in terms of how it affects them or their “team”.
TaiwanIsNotChina
I wonder whether the qualification is now to write an essay praising His Fraudulencey.
Tokyo Guy
Can't have anything promoting academic excellence now, can we? That would be anathema to the current administration, whose educational agency is led by a woman who can't tell the difference between AI and A1
Blacklabel
It’s never been “academic excellence” under liberals.
it’s been the “best” person…who is also of this certain (sx identity/gender/race) .
a “best” person who might be #2 of 100 of the total group and deserves it but who could also be #98 of 100 and doesn’t.
virusrex
Of course there has been globally recognized, that it is based on objective evidence that refutes lies that are now being pushed by the government do not refute in any way this level of excellence reached.
That applies to every person, not only the best. The problem you have is with some of those identities, genders or races that you feel do not deserve recognition as the best, even when they are.
When your only reason to make this assumption is that this person is not the gender, race, identity that you believe should be the better that says much more about your invalid moral system than the excellence achieved.
Blacklabel
if they were, the “who is of this sx orientation/gender/race” categorization would not be necessary,
the best white NBA player or best gay player or best player under 170cm doesn’t get an automatic bid to the All Star Game.
Blacklabel
DEI = didn’t earn it.
you don’t hear anyone say Eminem is the best white rapper. Tiger Woods is the best Black Asian golfer over 40.
If someone says it, he’s the best rapper. The best golfer. Period.
As it should be, THAT is excellence.