Mississippi universities scrambled to understand the far-reaching implications of a memo issued by the White House late Monday night that ordered a temporary freeze of all federal grants, specifically those supporting research and programs that do not align with President Donald Trump’s ideology.
The Office of Management and Budget memo, which is set to take effect at 5 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, sparked widespread anxiety in faculty, staff and administrators at Mississippi’s universities where federal dollars fund everything from research into automated blackberry harvesting, medical centers focused on major diseases affecting Mississippians, salaries, and tuition and health insurance for graduate students.
In total, Mississippi’s universities receive more than $530 million in federal funding for research, with the bulk of that going to Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi. It’s still unclear what will happen to programs at those universities, but likely to be affected is research on topics impacted by Trump’s flurry of executive orders targeting federal grants that support illegal immigrants or promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, abortion and gender ideology.
The memo does not apply to federal assistance to students, such as student loans or Pell Grants for low-income students, the Trump administration clarified on Tuesday.
As of press time, little information was available about what that will look like or if the universities are putting any programs on pause. The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees released a statement that it was monitoring the OMB directive.
“We are aware of the temporary pause on federal financial assistance programs and its potential impact on the state’s public universities,” John Sewell, the IHL spokesperson, wrote in a statement.
Sid Salter, Mississippi State’s vice president for strategic communications, said any further comment beyond IHL’s statement was premature.
“Because of the size of our research enterprise, it’s a lot to review, so we’re going to review before we speak,” Salter said.
In a statement, State Auditor Shad White, who has repeatedly called for Mississippi lawmakers to ban state funding for DEI initiatives, applauded the memo.
“President Trump’s decision to freeze federal dollars going towards DEI and other racial social engineering policies is 100% the right move,” White said.
At the University of Mississippi, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences called a 9:30 a.m. emergency meeting, but administrators were not able to answer questions from the handful of faculty who showed up.
“They’re in triage but also not really knowing like, what they can triage,” said James Thomas, a sociology professor who attended the meeting.
Thomas said the administrator who led the meeting told faculty that the college was prioritizing financial support for student researchers who are funded with federal dollars, but the plan for how that would happen was unclear. The university receives federal funds in the form of reimbursements.
Any other spending that was not “mission critical” should be paused, Thomas said the faculty were told.
This led a biology professor to ask what would happen to their animals.
“We have live animals and they need to get fed and we feed them with these federal dollars,” Thomas recalled the biology professor saying, to which the administrator responded, “Don’t charge anything to your grants today. We can’t guarantee you that we would be able to reimburse for any cost.”
The sociology department has two graduate students with federal funding, Thomas said. He was just about to send acceptance letters to students for a 10-week summer fellowship focused on preparing for a STEM career.
But since the fellowship has the word “race” in the title, Thomas said he thinks his National Science Foundation grant will likely be canceled. He tried checking the NSF website to confirm the title, but it wasn’t working as of Tuesday morning.