OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. sent a mass email to the OU community Monday evening addressing concerns related to budget cuts announced by the Trump administration to the National Institute of Health.
Friday night, the NIH announced the Trump administration would be cutting billions of dollars in biomedical research funding. The move cuts “indirect” costs related to research down to 15% down from an average of around 27 and 28%. These costs include administrative requirements, facilities and other operations that many scientists say are essential.
Hospitals and universities across the nation criticized the move, which the NIH said would save the federal government more than $4 billion a year.
On Monday, attorneys general representing 22 states sued the Trump administration, asking a federal judge to temporarily block the policy change. U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley temporarily blocked the NIH from implementing the cuts. A hearing is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 21.
“Over the weekend, we continued to monitor news on this topic and are in active discussions with our federal delegation and partners,” Harroz wrote. “We expect a broad array of support among national associations to push against these changes, as well as key national leaders to continue to educate members of the federal administration regarding the detrimental impact of these changes.”
According to Harroz, the university has developed working groups launched by the Office of Legal Counsel to review and assess developments from the federal administration.
Harroz wrote that Ian Dunn, OU College of Medicine executive dean, spent the weekend in Washington, D.C., meeting with other deans and leaders from the Association of American Medical Colleges to discuss strategies in response to the NIH action.
“These discussions are being shared with our executive leadership, who are proactively considering next steps should the administration seek to generalize the NIH action to other federal agencies,” Harroz wrote.
This story was edited by Ismael Lele and Ana Barboza.
