"Over a thousand people crowded around UC Berkeley’s Savio Steps in Sproul Plaza on Friday (March 7) to protest ongoing or threatened cuts to federal research funds, part of a day of action organized by research scientists around the country.
Gathering in the warm sun, the crowd, bearing placards and signs in support of scientific research, heard from speakers who excoriated the Trump administration for trying to shut down one of the most productive economic engines of all time.
The event was one of nearly three dozen “Stand up for Science” rallies held nationwide to protest mass government firings, the attempted elimination of all USAID funding, proposed cuts to research grants from National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and “the mass cancellation of research projects that the administration is opposed to on ideological grounds,” said Edward Miguel, one of the organizers of the event."