Friday, March 7, a large crowd of protesters gathered at the intersection of Richmond and Jamestown roads, adjacent to the College of William and Mary’s historic Wren Building. The demonstration was part of the “Stand up for Science” movement, which mobilized dozens of protests nationwide, including in Washington, D.C. and Richmond.
Demonstrators’ chants included the slogans, “Fund facts not felons,” “No science, no beer,” “Progress over profits” and “Fund science, save lives.” Cars slowed to read the protestors’ signs, and many honked in support.
One protester, professor of geology Rowan Lockwood, remarked that she heard about the demonstration from a student.
“I have watched as my students, alumni, peers and colleagues have been fired, as my science and other sciences have been censored, and I’ve watched as my funding has been slashed. It’s time for us to stand up and say something about that,” she said.
Professor Lockwood also described how colleagues and friends from the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Institute of Health, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Energy all lost funding. Further budget cuts, such as to the National Science Foundation, remain on the horizon.
“Friends that I’ve had who have lost funding so far are from the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the National Forest Service, the National Institute of Health and the Department of Energy. The National Science Foundation is also scheduled to cut a bunch of funds, that’s going to happen on March 14th,” Lockwood said.
Faculty director of the Institute for Integrative Conservation and professor of biology John Swaddle spoke on an announcement by the NIH on Tuesday.
“In addition to specific grants being cut, they’re talking about cutting what’s called ‘the overhead,’” he said. “The overhead pays just for the university to function. It supports HR, finance, custodial services, keeping the lights on. That enormously affects every student at those universities.”
Swaddle further commented on the precarity of current federal funding.
“Already, many big research universities, — including William and Mary — are no longer admitting graduate students, because they can’t afford to have graduate students,” he said. “And without the overhead, universities are at risk of closure. Closing whole units, whole departments — maybe even closing the whole institution.”
Mei Mei Mon ’27 recently lost an environmental consulting internship because of the budget cuts.
“I’ve had this internship for the past two summers. It’s funded federally, and since the funding has been cut the entire department that I work for is no longer funded at all. I was supposed to come back, and now it’s completely evaporated. It’s a struggle trying to find other jobs,” Mon said.
Mon described applying to jobs and internships only to find out later that they’d defunded or taken away.
Susan Woodward, a Williamsburg resident, described how federal funding cuts affected her daughter, who is in a PhD program for clinical psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
“Her professors and her research associates are getting cease and desist letters, their grants are being stopped and the research studies that have taken years and years to compile — some that are even still in process — are wiped from the NIH, the government websites. All the data she’s worked on is gone. She’s very upset. I want her to know I’m advocating for her,” she said.
Maclaren Johnson ’26, a biology major at the College, reflected on the unprecedented circumstances that brought her to the protest;
“A lot of us are taught, as early career scientists, that we’re not supposed to be political,” Johnson said. “We’re taught that our only job is to present the facts to the people in charge and let them make the decisions, because it can be risky. It’s damaging to your career, and it can be damaging to your credibility to get really political. But a lot of us are starting to feel like our careers are at stake either way.”
Johnson organized the demonstration, encouraging others to spread the word and continue advocating for the cause.
“It was really a big collection of students and faculty across the school who wanted to show our support for federally funded science and scientific research,” Johnson said. “I got an email from my advisor with a flyer, it had the date and time and basically said: If you feel this way, here’s a place to be and a time to go express it.”
In less than 24 hours, Johnson printed and handed out dozens of flyers, trying to mobilize as many people as she could.
“I’m not organized,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s just too important to not start trying to get people involved, you know?”
Lockwood encouraged people to call and visit their congressional representatives.
“We need to speak up. Your elected representatives are elected for a reason, and it’s your job as a citizen to make them aware of what’s going on,” she said.
Dave Cassidy, a local resident and member of a community organizing group called the Blue Tankards, said he found out about the event on Thursday and worked to gather support.
“I think a lot of people don’t know where to put their energy,” Cassidy said. “Our goal is to direct people towards the things they can do that actually make a difference, like this protest. One of the big things we’re focused on is the Virginia races in 2025, especially the Spanberger gubernatorial campaign. If we can direct voters towards those races, it could make a huge difference.”
Adam Malinowski-Liu ’25 shared that a coalition of student groups planned another demonstration in support of academic funding for March 19.
“The only way that we are going to be able to make meaningful change happen is by involving more and more students, faculty and people in the community,” he said. “And taking to the streets.”
