Healey warns about researchers leaving, students staying away
Photo | Courtesy of Colin A. Young, State House News Service
Gov. Maura Healey
Gov. Maura Healey has spent the last few weeks using her bully pulpit to warn of a brain drain out of Massachusetts, as a consequence of President Donald Trump's cuts to research funding and the threat of foreign-born students being deported.
"I've talked a lot about my concerns with what's happening with other governments being on the ground here in Massachusetts, looking to lure postdocs away. This is very problematic for this important ecosystem, and it's certainly not, in my mind, consistent with the quote, 'America First agenda.' Ceding intellectual assets to China does not make America stronger; does not make America more competitive," Healey said on Wednesday at MassBio's "State of Possible" conference in Boston.
Earlier this month at a press conference at Boston Children's Hospital warning about Trump's cuts to National Institutes of Health funding, Healey said "China was on the campus" of the University of Massachusetts recruiting researchers whose work had been defunded or was in a state of uncertainty.
"I've also spoken with other communities who've reported that it's not limited to China. We have folks coming from the Middle East and from Europe, and that's their prerogative to come. They want talent, so they're coming to Massachusetts... because, effectively, the Trump administration is doing things that gives it away," she said.
Trump is seeking to reduce the size of medical research grants as part of his efforts to slash federal spending that he says has become wasteful. The White House said it would sharply reduce the rate at which it reimburses research institutions for "indirect costs," like lab space, faculty, equipment and infrastructure.
After her speech at the MassBio conference, Healey told reporters Wednesday that she also worries about foreign students being afraid to study in the United States amid news of deportations.
Federal immigration authorities arrested a Tufts PhD student Tuesday on a residential Somerville street, the Boston Globe reported.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national in the U.S. on a student visa, reportedly voiced support for the pro-Palestinian movement at Tufts, though she said she didn't lead the movement. Trump promised to crack down on college students who helped lead campus protests last spring about the war in Gaza.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity,” Trump wrote in a social media post earlier this month. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
Healey said on Wednesday that she has to learn more about the situation, and wouldn't give a comment on the specifics of Ozturk's arrest.
"What I do know is that we have hundreds of thousands of students who come from other countries to Massachusetts to study in our colleges and universities. They are undergraduates, graduate students, they are fellows and research fellows. They are postdoc students. They contribute in huge ways to our economy here, to our GDP... I'm very concerned that actions by the Trump administration to signal to students in other countries don't come to Massachusetts," she said.
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