The entire 12-member Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board resigned Wednesday, accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of partisan meddling by undermining the program’s selection process.
The members of the board wrote in a resignation statement they would depart their roles “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.”
Their accusation that “the current administration has usurped the authority of the Board” includes denying awards to “a substantial number of individuals” already selected and subjecting another 1,200 recipients to “an unauthorized review process.”
The awards affected include those in a number of fields including biology, engineering, architecture, agriculture, crop sciences, animal sciences, biochemistry, medical sciences, music and history.
“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 wrote in its letter. The program’s “proud legacy has depended on one thing above all: the integrity of the program’s selection process based on merit, not ideology, and its insulation from political interference. That integrity is now undermined.”
Congress established the Fulbright program in 1946, which fosters international academic exchange and global diplomacy. The program awards thousands of scholarships in the U.S. and over 160 countries. Legislation in 1961 mandated that the selection of the scholarship recipients and others fell to the 12-person board appointed by the president.
Per Politico, the current board was appointed by former President Joe Biden. The now-former board members include several names from Bidenworld, like former deputy chief of staff and 2024 campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon.
Other White House officials include former legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell, speechwriter Vinay Reddy, and first lady Jill Biden’s policy director, Mala Adiga.
But the Fulbright program, housed in the State Department, has been on shaky ground under the Trump administration. A leaked memo in April obtained by The New York Times proposed, amongst other things, “curtailing all of the department’s educational and cultural exchanges, like the Fulbright Program.”
The board, in their letter, alleges they “have raised these legal issues and our strong objections with senior administration officials on multiple occasions, including in writing.” Despite this, they said they have not received a response.
The members write that they had no choice but to resign en masse in protest of the administration’s political meddling.
“To continue to serve after the Administration has consistently ignored the Board’s request that they follow the law would risk legitimizing actions we believe are unlawful and damage the integrity of this storied program and America’s credibility abroad,” the board said.
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.