Comment from Mia Villegas
Mia VillegasOpposeAcademic
Summary: Mia Villegas, an academic researcher at CSU Long Beach and UCI, opposes the proposed changes to OMB regulations. She argues that the changes would grant political appointees unilateral power over grant selection and could lead to the cancellation of research related to DEI.
,My name is Mia Villegas and I am a graduate student at CSU Long Beach, I am also a affiliated with UCI as a Academic Researcher for the past 5 years having worked on NIH sponsored projects. I strongly disagree with the proposed changes to OMB. Sections 200.205 would allow political appointees unilateral power in in awarding and selecting grants. This would give unilateral control over funding separate from any scientific peer review. Additionally, Section 200.340-42 will ban areas--and permit certain grants to be cancelled--if that research is about "unlawful DEI". These changes would target researchers and limit scientific discovery for generations to come. [ ]