The board overseeing the Fulbright programme, the prestigious exchanges between US and foreign scholars, quit on Wednesday, accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of political interference.
Members of the board, nominated by successive presidents, voiced alarm about “injecting politics and ideological mandates” into a long non-partisan programme.
“The current administration has usurped the authority of the board and denied Fulbright awards to a substantial number of individuals who were selected for the 2025-2026 academic year,” the board members said in a resignation statement posted online.
“The administration is also currently subjecting an additional 1,200 foreign Fulbright recipients to an unauthorised review process and could reject more,” it said.
“We believe these actions not only contradict the statute but are antithetical to the Fulbright mission and the values, including free speech and academic freedom, that Congress specified in the statute.”
The board members chose to resign rather than “endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise US national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright programme nearly 80 years ago,” they said.
The State Department didn’t immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
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 politicised 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.
The Fulbright programme, which was established in 1946, sends US 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.
Named after late senator J. William Fulbright, the scholarship was seen as a major source of US soft power by bringing leading scholars to US universities and sending Americans overseas.
The Trump administration has waged war on US universities, which Vice President JD Vance described before taking office as “the enemy” due to their influence and the often left-leaning views in academia.
Trump has cut off billions of dollars in federal research funds for leading universities, over their purported lacklustre response to anti-Semitism during protests against Israel’s devastating military offensive in Gaza.
The Trump administration has also aggressively revoked visas for students, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio using an obscure law that allows him to remove foreigners deemed to go against US foreign policy interests.
Rubio recently suspended processing of visas for foreign students, who are a major source of revenue for US universities, so the State Department can ramp up screening of applicants’ social media postings.
