Scientists at IU organize group in effort to spur push-back against Trump policies

Brun was speaking at the second meeting of a group known as Concerned Scientists @IU. The group is not an official university organization, but rather an informal collective of faculty, staff, students and community members interested in issues related to the integrity and support of science.

"From my personal perspective, I just have been terribly saddened and concerned by daily news coming out of the Trump administration on what I view as a very destructive attitude toward science in general and evidence-based policy decisions," said Michael Hamburger, a faculty member in the department of Earth and atmospheric sciences who helped start the group. "I felt it was better for me to organize and try to do something than passively listen to a daily dose of bad news."

That was the focus of Thursday night's meeting in the IU School of Global and International Studies Auditorium. About 50 people showed up to learn about possible consequences of Trump's budget proposal and what they might be able to do about it.

Trump's proposal, released last week, calls for increasing the U.S. Defense Department's budget by about $54 billion. He plans to do this by slashing funding for scientific research organizations, such as the National Institutes of Health, which would see a budget cut of more than 18 percent, or about $5.8 billion.