Fulbright board resigns as it claims political interference by Trump administration

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The board of the Fulbright Program, the international educational exchange initiative sponsored by the US government, has resigned in protest at what it has described as the Trump administration’s political interference in its operations.

In a statement the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board said the government had been meddling in its selection process, which it states is “based on merit, not ideology”, and has traditionally been insulated from political interference. It said the integrity of that process was “now undermined”.

Political appointees at the state department had cancelled Fulbright scholarships for dozens of academics and students, mainly on the basis of their research topics, according to people familiar with the matter.

The prestigious Fulbright Program has long been considered one of the pillars of US cultural diplomacy. It has been widely seen as enhancing America’s relations with its allies, with many Fulbright alumni rising to leadership roles in government, the sciences and the arts.

Trump administration critics say the Fulbright is the latest victim of the White House’s assault on symbols of US soft power. President Donald Trump has terminated funding for the Voice of America broadcasting network; dismantled USAID, the country’s main agency for international aid; and withdrawn from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization.

A senior state department official said the 12 members of the Fulbright board were “partisan political appointees of the Biden administration”, and it was “ridiculous” to believe they would “continue to have final say over the application process”.

“The claim that the Fulbright Hayes Act affords exclusive and final say over Fulbright applications to the Fulbright board is false. This is nothing but a political stunt attempting to undermine President Trump,” the official said.

People familiar with the matter said the Fulbright awards were being cancelled in many instances by Darren Beattie, acting under-secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. He worked as a speechwriter for Trump during his first term but left his post in 2018 after it was reported that he had spoken at a conference attended by white nationalists.

Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee, said the Fulbright board, which is bipartisan, had resigned en masse “rather than grant credibility to a politicised and unlawful process”.

In a statement she said that while she understood and respected the board’s decision, it would “change the quality of Fulbright programming and the independent research that has made our country a leader in so many fields”.

The resignations come as the Fulbright Program’s budget is being slashed. Spending on educational and cultural exchange programmes is set to fall from $691mn in this fiscal year to $50mn next year, according to the budget request for 2026 sent to Congress by secretary of state Marco Rubio.

The board said it had voted 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”.

It said the Trump administration had “usurped the authority of the board” by denying Fulbright awards to a “substantial number of individuals” who had been selected for the 2025-2026 academic year after a lengthy selection process.

The awards that were revoked included studies in subjects such as biology, engineering, architecture and medical sciences, it said.

The Trump administration was also subjecting an additional 1,200 foreign Fulbright recipients to an “unauthorised review process” and “could reject more”. Such moves, it said, were “antithetical to the Fulbright mission and the values, including free speech and academic freedom, that Congress specified in the statute”.

Continuing to serve “would risk legitimising actions we believe are unlawful and damage the integrity of this storied programme and America’s credibility abroad”, the board said.