Trump fires entire National Science Board without warning

The White House released a statement citing the Supreme Court's 2021 decision in U.S. v. Arthrex as the legal basis for the dismissals. The White House argued that the Arthrex ruling raised constitutional questions about whether non-Senate-confirmed appointees can exercise the kind of significant authority Congress delegated to the National Science Board.

The statement said the administration looks forward to working with Congress to update the NSB statute to ensure it can perform its duties as Congress intended. Legal scholars and scientists challenged the Arthrex rationale as a pretext. The Arthrex case addressed whether administrative patent judges at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board were principal officers requiring Senate confirmation, not the broader question of all non-Senate-confirmed advisory board members. Critics noted the administration had not dismissed other non-Senate-confirmed advisory board members under the same theory.

NSB Chair Victor McCrary had publicly opposed the Trump administration's FY2027 proposal to cut the NSF's budget by nearly 55 percent. The American Chemical Society's journal C&EN reported that McCrary's vocal opposition to the budget cuts may have contributed to the timing of the dismissals. The administration had also instructed NSF leadership not to share budget details with the board, limiting the board's ability to fulfill its statutory oversight role before the dismissals.

Board member Keivan Stassun, an astrophysicist at Vanderbilt University, said in multiple interviews that the administration had systematically dissolved or eviscerated science advisory groups and that the NSB firings fit a clear pattern. He warned the dismissals would allow the administration to act without any practical impediments to enacting its own budget priorities and ignoring congressional directives on NSF grants.

The NSB was preparing to release a major report on the United States ceding scientific ground to China at its May 5, 2026, meeting — a meeting that will not take place after the dismissals. Board member Yolanda Gil, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California who confirmed all 22 members were dismissed, said the report's cancellation deprives Congress and the public of critical information about U.S. scientific competitiveness.

The NSF has been without a permanent director since Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned in April 2025. The Trump administration nominated Jim O'Neill, a venture capitalist and former deputy HHS secretary, to lead the agency in March 2026. O'Neill would be the first NSF director with no scientific or engineering credentials. The Senate has not yet scheduled a confirmation hearing for O'Neill.

The mass dismissal is unprecedented in the NSB's 76-year history. Prior administrations have allowed board terms to expire normally and appointed politically aligned replacements over time, preserving the board's continuity and staggered independence. The complete removal of all members at once leaves the NSF with no governing board, no board-approved budget, and no independent scientific oversight of its $9 billion grant portfolio.

Last year, the NSF granted 51 percent less funding to scientists than the 2015-2024 average and terminated hundreds of active grants. The president's FY2027 budget proposes reducing the NSF's budget by more than 55 percent. Without an independent board to review and challenge these cuts, there is no institutional mechanism within NSF to resist politically driven reductions in basic science funding.

The Scientific American reported that the dismissed NSB members had theories about the administration's motives: Beachy believed the firings were to clear the way for a new council of advisers for O'Neill, while Stassun suggested the members may have been removed to prevent them from lobbying Congress to preserve NSF's FY2027 budget. Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote that the dismissals cut science and the public out of the picture entirely.

The mass dismissal fits into a broader pattern of the Trump administration eliminating federal scientific advisory bodies. Last year, the administration fired all 17 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The administration also eliminated 152 federal advisory committees at science agencies, merged all of the Department of Energy's advisory committees into one, and dismantled the EPA's research office.

Dr. Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called the NSB dismissal the latest in a string of erratic decisions destabilizing the National Science Foundation and all of American science. Former board members argued that without a functional NSB, the NSF operates as a politically directed agency rather than an independent scientific institution, which is contrary to the congressional intent behind the NSF Act of 1950.

A federal judge ruled in a different case that RFK Jr.'s firing of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices members violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which regulates advisory boards. It is unclear whether the NSB's statutory establishment by Congress, rather than by executive order, gives it additional legal protection against mass dismissal. No court challenge had been announced at the time of the firings.