Israel First, America Second
Trump admin gets free speech REALLY wrong
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a new Notice of Civil Rights Term and Condition of Award (NOT-OD-25-090) on April 21, 2025. You can read this notice for yourself, but the two key areas of concern are the definition of discrimination and the policy specifically prohibiting anti-Israel speech.
Details of NOT-OD-25-090
We would like to walk through a few of the details of this “civil rights” notice from the Trump administration. Let’s start with the defined purpose of NOT-OD-25-090:
“This Notice alerts the extramural research community of a new Civil Rights term and condition that modifies the current terms and conditions for all NIH grants, cooperative agreements, and other transaction (OT) awards. This term applies prospectively to new, renewal, supplement, or continuation awards issued on or after the date of this Notice. This new requirement supersedes Section 4.1.2 ‘Civil Rights Protections’ of the NIH Grants Policy Statement (GPS) as well as the negotiated terms of OT awards.”
So, this policy applies to any institution (university, nonprofit, or company) that wishes to get a grant or other award from the NIH. The policy requires the following:
By accepting the grant award, recipients are certifying that:
(i) They do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws; and
(ii) They do not engage in and will not during the term of this award engage in, a discriminatory prohibited boycott.
NOT-OD-25-090 defines DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and DEIA (DEI + accessibility) while directing the reader to Executive Order 14190 for a definition of “discriminatory equity ideology.” But the term “discriminatory prohibited boycott” is where things get really strange; it is defined as follows:
Discriminatory prohibited boycott means refusing to deal, cutting commercial relations, or otherwise limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies or with companies doing business in or with Israel or authorized by, licensed by, or organized under the laws of Israel to do business.
For however long the financial award is granted for research, the recipient organization cannot refuse to deal with Israeli companies. No other ally is mentioned - just Israel. No matter how much someone might want to protest the actions of a government on the other side of the world, they must remain silent under threat of repaying their NIH grant to the U.S. government.
Reacting to the Policy
If a member of a research organization wishes to receive a grant from the NIH, the entire organization must purge DEI and equity-based policy in addition to a commitment not to boycott Israel. If a member of the university, for instance, does engage in a boycott of Israel, the university may end up having to pay back the amount of the grant.
It is one thing to enforce policy that says a research institute is not eligible for grants paid for by the American taxpayer if it employs policies (like DEI) that discriminate against certain groups of American taxpayers. It is an entirely different proposal to restrict protest against the actions of a foreign government. In fact, it is bizarre to the core that research funding be contingent upon acquiescing to censorship.
Where Leadership Stands
Sure, President Trump is running the show. But he has appointed someone selse to run the NIH, which falls under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Dr. Jay Bhattacharrya heads the NIH, and he has made it clear that this policy is coming from a higher level within the administration. It is out of his hands! But Bobby Kennedy, head of HHS, has been a bit more vocal about his position on anti-Semitism — allow us to break down one of his public message from March 3, 2025:
“Anti-Semitism — like racism — is a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues.”
OK, that checks out. Continuing on…
“In recent years, the censorship and false narratives of woke cancel culture have transformed our great universities into greenhouses for this deadly and virulent pestilence.”
The topic seems a bit more nuanced than that, but we will grant that woke culture has quite severely confused many a young mind. Continuing further on…
Making America healthy means building communities of trust and mutual respect, based on speech freedom and open debate.
Hold up right there, Bobby. We believe in making America healthy through communities of trust and mutual respect. But how did we get from “open debate” to you have to pay back your grant if someone within your organization speaks out against the actions of a foreign government? How can we have communities of trust and mutual respect based on free speech and open debate if YOUR agency is censoring voices of protest against Israel?
While we do not view Trump as a meet-me-in-the-middle kind of guy, we do view Kennedy as such. But censorship cannot be abided. Please correct this, Mr. Kennedy.
Bringing It On Home
President Trump was poised to be The Free Speech President. He suffered at the hands of censorial forces that robbed him of his own free speech. He built a team that included numerous voices that were censored during the authoritarian Biden administration — including Robert Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Jay Bhattacharrya. So, how did we end up here?
What makes the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and now MAGA remain so submissive to Israel? Why is the Trump administration so invested in fighting for Israel? Why does the Trump administration find it necessary to silence voices of dissent against Israel?
It is rarely those who are on the right side of a moral debate who resort to censorship. Censorship is the tactic of the coward, of the weak, and of the afraid. It is the tactic of the modern progressive Left. This is cancel culture. Trump was supposed to be different. To quote ourselves from our article, Dictionarial Disintegration,
Modern progressives want government to enforce their ideals at the expense of the liberty of those who disagree.
When you enforce your ideals at the expense of the liberties of others, you WILL lose support. It will only hurt you. It is just bad politics. It is a massive part of the Democratic Party losing so much support.
Open dialog, free exchange of ideas, and unfettered debate is the path to meeting in the middle. Censorship never works. Censorship is evil.
Trump has provided unprecedented transparency into his administration’s operation during his second term. Why not just be transparent about this subject? Just start out by saying, “Israel is important to the United States because,” and then give the public an honest explanation. What are you afraid of, Mr. Trump? Don’t be like them. Don’t censor. And, please, do not further corrupt a government institution that Kennedy and Bhattacharrya are trying to clean up. It is a step in the wrong direction.
Trump was supposed to be The Free Speech President. He was also supposed to be The World Peace President, yet he is being pressured by his Israeli allies to initiate a war with Iran. He has previously seemed intent on avoiding war because it is not what is best for America or her allies. Time will tell if Trump is actually willing to put America’s interests as his top priority, or if he will succumb to the pressure to put Israel First.