The Silence of the Scientists

95,000 science employees gone. 75 percent of US professors considering leaving. The data being archived in secret. The people who know the most about what is coming are the ones being silenced first.

I. The Number

Start with the number, because the number is the argument.

Between September 2024 and December 2025, the federal government’s science workforce lost 95,000 employees, a reduction of 11.9 percent in fifteen months. More than a third of the civil servants laid off or pushed out worked at a science agency: the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, the US Geological Survey, NASA. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan government research organization, documented the losses in March 2026. The White House did not respond to their request for comment.