All members of the board that oversees the US State Department's Fulbright Program, which facilitates international educational exchanges, have voted to resign over alleged political interference from President Donald Trump's administration, the board said on Wednesday.
The Trump administration had unlawfully "usurped the authority" of the board by denying awards to a "substantial number" of people who had already been selected for the 2025-2026 academic year through a yearlong, merit-based process, the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board said in a statement posted on the website Substack.
The department is also putting another 1,200 Fulbright recipients through an "unauthorized review process" that could lead to more rejections, according to the statement.
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The board members chose to resign “rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise US national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago," they said.
A senior State Department official accused the board members of being partisan political appointees from the administration of former President Joe Biden and called their mass resignation a "political stunt" meant to undermine Trump.
"It’s ridiculous to believe that these members would continue to have final say over the application process, especially when it comes to determining academic suitability and alignment with President Trump’s Executive Orders," the official said.
The Fulbright program, which was established in 1946, sends US graduate students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals abroad to study, conduct research or teach English in approximately 160 countries worldwide.
The program awards approximately 8,000 competitive, merit-based grants each year in most academic disciplines and fields of study, according to its website.
The New York Times reported the board had approved the applications of around 200 American professors and researchers who were set to work at universities and research institutions in other countries this summer, and the State Department was meant to send acceptance letters to the applicants in April.
Instead, board members learned the department's Office of Public Diplomacy had begun sending rejection letters to the scholars based on the topics of their research.
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"The bipartisan Fulbright Board was mandated by Congress to be a check on the executive and to ensure that students, researchers and educators are not subjected to the blatant political favoritism that this Administration is known for," Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
"While I understand and respect the bipartisan Fulbright Board for resigning en masse rather than grant credibility to a politicized process, I’m painfully aware that today’s move will change the quality of Fulbright programming and the independent research that has made our country a leader in so many fields," she added.
Since taking office for his second term in January, Trump's administration has undertaken a major overhaul of the State Department, enacted massive funding cuts for academic research, and curbed visas for foreign students.
