Faculty left with unanswered questions one year after grant terminations

Collage by Riley LeBlanc, Photographer

Last year, millions of dollars in research funding were wiped: not by humans, but an AI prompt. An algorithm decided what knowledge and research would survive. 

Court documents from a federal lawsuit show that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffers used ChatGPT to terminate $100 million in research grants at the orders of President Donald Trump. These grants, awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), were automatically flagged for supposed references to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Associate professor of history Alexander Bay, who was researching public health and modernization in Japan, had his NEH grant terminated in April 2025.

Bay said he wasn’t sure which keywords in his grant proposal might have triggered the AI to flag his research, and that he had never previously faced any backlash toward his research.

“It’s bullshit. It’s like giving a computer to a six-year-old,” Bay said. “You’re pulling the rug out of people that walk on water intellectually compared to you.”

While then-acting provost Glenn Pfeiffer made the decision for Chapman to cover Bay’s full year of research, Bay’s original grant has sat dormant, with the NEH barred from distributing it.

Assistant professor of Asian American studies Vivian Yan-Gonzalez also received the NEH grant, which she used to expand her dissertation into a larger book project examining the history of Asian American politics. 

“Asking AI to evaluate whether or not these programs counted as DEI — which is a very, very flawed way to go about your work — sort of speaks to the importance of having critical thinking skills,” said Yan-Gonzalez.

Wilkinson College Dean Jennifer Keene also chose to honor the awards, providing Yan-Gonzalez a one-year sabbatical. 

Yan-Gonzalez says the decision was unique and meaningful. 

“It showed that Chapman understood the importance of our research, of academic freedom, and that it was willing to support us in pursuing our projects,” she said.

Likewise, Bay expressed his gratitude to Keene and Pfeiffer for funding his year of research.

“May the gods and Buddhas bless the dean and provost for their support,” Bay said. “It doesn’t change what happened, but I am super appreciative.”

However, not all Chapman professors who had grants terminated received support from the university.

Professor of sociology Peter Simi had two grants terminated last year, though not NEH-funded.

One research project, examining threats to public officials, was funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the other, where Simi was interviewing former white supremacists, was funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

Neither Wilkinson College nor Chapman as a whole provided Simi with funding to continue his research, with reasons unknown.

“They could’ve offered to provide funding for the rest of the award year, which would’ve been two months (for the DHS grant), but they didn’t,” Simi said.

Simi faced further challenges when his book on the white power movement in America was banned by the Naval Academy last April. Like Bay, he said that he had never received government backlash toward his work in the past.

“To be honest, I had a feeling that at some point this would happen, just because of what’s happening more broadly,” he said. “I think all grants with words like ‘white supremacist’ were cut.”

Whether by avoiding the DEI keywords or through sheer luck, however, some Chapman professors did not face any cuts to their nationally funded research. 

Professor of biological sciences Douglas Fudge, whose research in comparative biomaterials focuses on the uses of hagfish slime, has continued to receive funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

“I think we just got lucky,” Fudge said. “It really could have just come down to what the AI model decided to just spit out that day.”

Despite interest from government groups like the U.S. military, which oversees DARPA, Fudge still worries about the future of his lab.

“Getting funding is always difficult, especially for curiosity-based research, which is mostly what I do,” he said. “But the last year and a half have been something completely different. I've never experienced this level of anxiety about science funding.”

According to these professors, these grant terminations have profound impacts on the future of Chapman, academia and the economy.

Yan-Gonzalez said the Asian American studies minor at Chapman was created as a result of an NEH grant that Chapman professors applied for.

“Chapman has struggled to find the line between honoring stated commitments and values and the wrath of an administration that is opposed to knowledge,” said Yan-Gonzalez, citing the dismantling of the university’s DEI Office as an example.

“(Asian American studies) explicitly deals with race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class inequality — all of these kinds of keywords and terms that would be flagged if you ran it through an AI model,” said Yan-Gonzalez.

Additionally, Simi spoke to the educational detriments of the loss of funding for the humanities.

“(National grants) are critical in a number of ways,” he said. “They are helpful for students to be able to gain research experience, and lead to direct application that has a benefit to society.”

As universities continue to navigate ongoing political shifts and changes of the presidential administration, many faculty members are questioning the stability of their work and the education of their students.

Chapman’s Office of Research oversees both the pre- and post-award process for grant recipients. On top of grant amounts, the university receives funding for indirect costs, according to Fudge. In other words, for each grant awarded to a professor, Chapman receives additional funding for overhead costs, such as building maintenance.

While it is unclear what steps the Office of Research took after grants were terminated last year, Chapman has likely lost significant funding that would have benefited indirect costs.

For professors like Bay, Simi and Gonzalez, the loss of their grants is just the tip of the iceberg. Deeper concerns lie in the uncertainty of who or what decides the value of their research, and how those decisions are made. 

At a time when AI is prominent within our society, schools and now government, will oversimplification continue to come at the cost of education?