Fulbright board quits, claims Trump management politicized scholarships

The complete Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board resigned over what it stated Wednesday was once meddling through the Trump management within the board’s authority to award scholarships.

The 12-member board, in a observation, stated the State Department, which runs the scholarship program, had denied Fulbright awards “to a substantial number of individuals who were selected for the 2025-2026 academic year.”

“The administration is also currently subjecting an additional 1,200 foreign Fulbright recipients to an unauthorized review process and could reject more,” the board stated in its observation, which was once posted on Substack.

“We believe these actions not only contradict the statute but are antithetical to the Fulbright mission and the values, including free speech and academic freedom, that Congress specified in the statute,” the board stated.

Jed Katz, the chair of the board and managing director of Javelin Venture Partners, , referred CNBC to the observation when requested about his and the opposite contributors’ resignations.

Like each and every different member of the board, Katz was once appointed to the panel through former President Joe Biden.

The different board contributors who renounce come with individuals who served in Biden’s management, amongst them Mala Adiga, who was once a deputy assistant to Biden, former White House deputy leader of workforce Jen O’Malley Dillon, who chaired Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential marketing campaign, and previous Biden speechwriter Vinay Reddy.

CNBC has asked remark from the State Department.

The resignations had been first reported through The New York Times.

“Effective immediately, members of the Congressionally mandated Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board voted overwhelmingly to resign from the board, rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago,” the board stated in its observation.

“At the program’s inception, Congress clearly specified that the Fulbright Board has final approval authority of applicants, which occurs after an exhaustive and deliberate, year-long process led by non-partisan career staff at the State Department and Embassies around the world,” the board stated.