On Friday, December 16, 2017, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration asked agencies within Health and Human Services to stop using several words in official documents. Some of the words include: diversity, science-based, evidence-based, fetus, entitlement, vulnerable and transgender. The new language guidelines were directed at officials writing the Center for Disease Control’s budget, but depending on the reach of these guidelines, it could have negative consequences across the country’s innovation system. The first consequence of the guidelines is they will push research and development (R&D) away from projects that help marginalized communities. Federal agencies, like the National Science Foundation, try to fund projects that will have a broad impact on society, and in general, this emphasis has bipartisan support. Conservative politicians argue that federally funded research should be used for “useful” research that can help the economy. Liberal politicians argue that research should respond to people’s needs and that it is bad to assume that research will automatically trickle down to marginalized communities. The Trump Administration’s guidelines weaken the case that science should have broad impacts. Scientists may conclude that issues like diversity and improving the lives of vulnerable communities are not worthy research topics, and consequently, R&D could increase inequality in the USA and around the world. A second consequence of discouraging terms like science-based and evidence-based is that it impairs the ability of the President’s advisers to give him reliable answers to the world’s most pressing problems. Advisers do not simply fabricate information for the daily briefing. Rather, they comb through data and reports to give the President the most evidence-based information possible. By down-playing science-based answers, the President is encouraging answers based on hearsay, and unverified Washington gossip. This could have dire consequences for our future. What happens if a report falsely accuses North Korea of launching a weapon or falsely claims that the economy is entering an economic depression? Third, the new guidelines are a blatant attempt to downplay issues of diversity and inclusion. When the administration tells the CDC not to discuss diversity, transgender or entitlement, he is not trying to build a unified country. Rather, he is saying that those issues are not important and do not deserve attention. As was shown on the campaign trail and in his first year in office, the President is either tone deaf to the needs of marginalized groups or simply does not care. Rather than making a list of banned words, the President should use his platform to create a proactive message that encourages the best science that helps all Americans. For example, President Trump repeatedly stated that he wants American firms to manufacture and hire domestically. Though this message fails to consider the complexities of globalization, it is still a clear message that people across the political spectrum can support. President Trump’s priority on job creation was quickly internalized by agency administrators, program managers and individual’s interacting with the government, and from anecdotal evidence, researchers pivoted their focus to reflect these priorities. The Administration’s current pronouncement only sparks outrage and backlash from researchers and the public. This will have negative impacts by furthering dividing the country and limiting productive engagement across party, economic, geographic and racial lines. As the head of the executive branch, the President’s job is to direct the various federal agencies to implement their mission. It is not wrong that he desires the message of these organizations to be shaped to fit his priorities. However, banning these words attacks the core beliefs of our country and undercuts his ability to lead a unified country based on real information. Communities across the political spectrum should push back against such draconian measures to control the political message. -Thomas S. Woodson |
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June 2020
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