Virtually the entire Fulbright board resigns, citing Trump administration interference

All however one member of the 12-person board that oversees the distinguished Fulbright Program has resigned, citing political interference by the Trump administration.

Congress created the Fulbright International Scholarship Board by means of the 1961 Fulbright–Hays Act of 1961 to oversee the U.S. authorities’s flagship program of worldwide academic and cultural change. This system awards some 8,000 merit-based grants annually, enabling Fulbright students throughout fields to review, train and conduct analysis in some 160 nations.

Board members, whom the sitting president appoints to three-year phrases, meet quarterly to determine the insurance policies and procedures governing the non-partisan Fulbright Program. They’re additionally answerable for deciding on the scholarship contributors, as the previous board members wrote in a resignation letter printed to Substack on Wednesday.

“At the program’s inception, Congress clearly specified that the Fulbright Board has final approval authority of applicants, which occurs after an exhaustive and deliberate, year-long process led by non-partisan career staff at the State Department and Embassies around the world,” reads the letter, from an account referred to as “formerly the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.”

However former board members say the Trump administration has interfered in that course of, undermining its integrity and usurping the board’s authority.

What do former board members allege? 

The resignation letter says the administration denied Fulbright awards to a “substantial number” of people it had chosen for the 2025-2026 educational 12 months, whereas additionally subjecting one other 1,200 international Fulbright recipients to “an unauthorized review process and could reject more.”

Awards had been overridden in topic areas spanning structure, biology, engineering, agriculture, animal sciences, medical sciences, music and historical past, it says, accusing the administration of “injecting politics and ideological mandates into the Fulbright program.”

“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,” they mentioned.

The letter says the board raised the authorized points and its robust objections with senior administration officers a number of instances, together with in writing, however that the officers “have refused to acknowledge or respond.”

In an announcement shared with NPR, the State Division — which sponsors this system — described the board members as “partisan political appointees” of former President Joe Biden and mentioned their declare that the 1961 Act “affords exclusive and final say” over Fulbright purposes to the board is fake.

“It’s ridiculous to believe that these members would continue to have final say over the application process, especially when it comes to determining academic suitability and alignment with President Trump’s Executive Orders,” it mentioned in an announcement, calling their resignations “a political stunt attempting to undermine President Trump.”

Nonetheless, the State Division’s personal coverage temporary cites the act as giving the board “final responsibility for the choice of all participants in educational exchange programs.”

The previous members mentioned they voted to resign on Wednesday, efficient instantly, “rather than endorse unprecedented actions” that they consider violate the regulation, compromise U.S. nationwide pursuits and undermine the Fulbright program’s mission and mandates.

“Our resignation is not a decision we take lightly,” they wrote. “But 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.”

White Home spokesperson Anna Kelly informed NPR on Thursday that “President Trump, not the Fulbright Board, was elected by the American people to ensure all foreign policy initiatives align with our national interests.”

Members defend their selections

As of Thursday morning, there is just one energetic member listed on the board’s web site: Carmen Estrada-Schaye, who was appointed in 2022. She informed NPR over e-mail: “I intend to keep that commitment.”

“Fulbright is a valuable asset to world peace and understanding,” Estrada-Schaye wrote. “Many eventual Nobel prize winners and world leaders were Fulbright scholars early in their careers.”

James Costos, one of many members who resigned, wrote in a LinkedIn put up that he had performed so “not in protest, but in defense of principle.”

He mirrored on assembly Harriet Mayor Fulbright — the widow of Sen. J. William Fulbright, the driving drive behind this system — at an awards ceremony in 2014.

“She said her husband created the Fulbright Program, among other things, to help prevent a third world war,” Costos wrote. “He believed that if people from around the world could come to the United States to study, to live, to learn alongside Americans, they would form human connections deeper than policy or politics.”

Costos mentioned he stepped away from the board “to honor that legacy, because I believe in it too deeply to stand by as it is compromised.”

What occurs subsequent? 

The mass resignation leaves the board’s remaining 11 seats empty. The White Home didn’t reply to NPR’s query about Trump’s plans for filling them.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the rating Democrat on the Senate International Relations Committee, informed NPR in an announcement that Congress meant the board to be a test on the chief and “ensure that students, researchers and educators are not subjected to the blatant political favoritism that this Administration is known for.”

She expressed concern about what would possibly occur with out that test.

“While I understand and respect the bipartisan Fulbright Board for resigning en masse rather than grant credibility to a politicized process, I’m painfully aware that today’s move will change the quality of Fulbright programming and the independent research that has made our country a leader in so many fields,” Shaheen mentioned.

Purposes for the 2026-2027 Fulbright Program opened in April, with a deadline of early October.