On Friday, March 7, “Stand Up For Science” rallies took place across the country, in defense of scientific research and against censorship from President Donald Trump’s administration.
Since his inauguration in January, his administration has fired thousands of workers from various federal agencies, including researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and at land management agencies in the Department of the Interior.
The administration has also been removing web pages and documents containing research, much of it related to climate change. Various academic organizations and nonprofits have been scrambling to archive and preserve as much of the data as possible.
In Colorado, “Stand Up for Science” events took place in Denver, Boulder, Golden, and Fort Collins. Rallies also took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Jackson, Wyoming.
Madison, a graduate student at CU Boulder, helped organize the Boulder walkout, which about 150 people attended. She asked that she only be identified by her first name for fear of retribution.
She said the protests have three main policy goals. The first is to continue funding scientific research.
“Right now, the proposed budget includes things like a 50% workforce reduction at the National Science Foundation, which is basically the committee that oversees scientific spending and oversees a lot of the grants that even my lab works with,” she said.
The second is to end political censorship in science. The Trump administration has purged various research from federal websites, much of it related to environmental justice and diversity. Madison said there’s a disconnect between the administration’s rhetoric and the research itself.
“There's a lot of misunderstanding, it seems like, from the administration, with their statements about things like transgender mice, when I believe they mean transgenic mice,” she said, referring to Trump’s joint address to Congress.
The president remarked that the Biden administration had spent millions of dollars on “making mice transgender.” “Transgenic mice” refers to mice that have had their genome, or DNA, altered in some way.
The third policy demand, Madison said, is to protect diversity, equity, and inclusion—DEI—initiatives in scientific research.
“Science is for everybody, and I think that prior to DEI, we did not live in a meritocracy. We do not live in one now,” she said. “DEI helped many people to get involved with science who are doing great work, who otherwise would not be here now.”
Madison also said it was disheartening to see some of the rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration about the federal workforce, decrying many research initiatives as “wasteful.”
“That's just not true, it saves lives,” she said. “I think it's very sad to hear what's being said about public servants who have spent decades working to get jobs with the federal government, not because they're like, ‘oh, the federal government pays so well,’ because it doesn't, but because they value the science (the government) does and they value the impact it has.”
In Salt Lake City, people gathered on the steps of the State Capitol. Among those in attendance were pediatricians Hilary Hewes, Beth Knackstedt, and Anne Blaschke.
“In our work we see a lot of illness and injury, and we have been able to combat a lot of that and make our children more healthy over the past several decades with science,” said Hewes. “Without believing in science and believing in research and that funding, we're going to go backward, and our children's health will be at risk.”
Hewes also said more prominent anti-vaccine rhetoric had a visible impact on her patients.
“I see kids who have—in this year—died of pertussis,” Hewes said. “I've seen children who've been sick from other preventable illnesses like pneumonia, influenza. We, as pediatricians, strongly believe in science. We strongly believe in vaccinations. We think it's one of the most important advances in childhood health in the last century.”
One infectious disease that has largely been eradicated thanks to safe and readily available vaccines is measles. So far, in 2025, there have been over 200 confirmed cases of measles in Texas and New Mexico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, two people have died.
Robert Kennedy, Jr., who was recently confirmed as the Health and Human Service Secretary, has a history of anti-vaccine activism, though he walked back some of his previous statements during his confirmation hearing. In a Fox News op-ed published last weekend, Kennedy said the MMR vaccine was safe, but said, “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”
Blaschke said she wanted to “let people know how important (science) is to Utah and to the whole country.”
Knackstedt agreed, saying she wanted lawmakers to ensure “that we have freedom in providing medical care and also doing research.”
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