WASHINGTON – White lab coats dotted the crowd gathered in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial on Friday afternoon. Some attendees accessorized with oversized cardboard syringes, while others wore safety goggles pushed up onto their foreheads; this was – you guessed it – a march for science.
The Stand Up for Science protest drew several thousand people to the National Mall, and thousands more across the country and the world. In response to the Trump administration’s drastic cuts to government-funded research, they demanded funding be restored, protested political interference in science, and supported diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in STEM.
Many waved whimsical signs sporting science-themed critiques of the Trump administration. “Trump’s experiments with our democracy won’t pass peer review,” one read. Another sported the slogan “Making a statistically significant difference.”
To attendees’ delight, Dr. Francis Collins, who headed the National Institutes of Health until 2021, led the crowd in a sing-along, and award-winning science communicator Bill Nye (the Science Guy) gave an impassioned speech in defense of science later in the afternoon.
The diverse speaker lineup also included Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Illinois Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), who is the only Ph.D. physicist in Congress.
In the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, thousands gathered to express their frustration with the Trump administration’s attitude towards science. (Sasha Draeger-Mazer/MNS)
Eight years ago, the first March for Science, held just a few months after President Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration, drew tens of thousands of people to the National Mall. The global attendance was estimated at upwards of one million.
Friday’s gathering on the Mall was smaller, with just a few thousand in attendance, but again driven by a sense of urgency and fears about the administration’s new policies might mean for the future of science.
Many signs expressed anger at the Trump administration, Republican lawmakers and, frequently, DOGE head Elon Musk. (Sasha Draeger-Mazer/MNS)
Since Trump retook office in January, his administration has dealt severe blows to government-funded science and research. Proposed changes to the grant allocation policy of the National Institutes of Health may threaten life-saving research, and several Trump cabinet nominees have openly contradicted proven scientific findings.
At the rally, many signs denounced Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s newly confirmed health and human services secretary, whose nomination cleared the Senate despite his history of promoting vaccine-related conspiracy theories.
Also a frequent target: Elon Musk, the billionaire-turned-presidential-advisor. Many signs called for the defunding of the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Lucas Dillard and Riley Auer posed with their signs on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. (Sasha Draeger-Mazer/MNS)
Lucas Dillard, a biophysicist, and Riley Auer, a behavioral scientist, made the trip up from Baltimore to, as Auer put it, “defend everyone’s right to a liveable future.”
“Science is a boon to our economy,” Dillard said. “If the defunding of science continues, the economic prosperity that America has seen will decline and we will become a faded superpower.”
China, he added, is doing the exact opposite for its science community: stepping up support and promoting research.
“They have increased funding to all of their universities in the past few years, and they will kind of eat our lunch,” he said.
Auer is a behavioral scientist; she once worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development and expressed concerns over the damage she said the administration has done to the agency.
“We’re relying on surveys that are sometimes five, ten years old already, and now we’re looking at a data crisis,” she said.
“We’re very supportive of the sciences,” said Jessica Blair, left. (Sasha Draeger-Mazer/MNS)
Rebecca and Jessica Blair drove almost six hours from Charlotte, N.C. to attend the rally. Neither are scientists, but came to show their support for the science community.
“My brother, he has a brand new baby, a newborn,” Rebecca Blair said, “and I’m worried that that baby’s going to grow up and not have access to the vaccines that she needs to grow up healthy, the way that we did.”
Her sister, Jessica, pointed to the increasing frequency of natural disasters in their home state.
“Climate change is a big issue for us, watching everybody being either on fire or flooded,” she said.
Someone in the crowd flew an upside-down American flag, a symbol historically used to signal distress. (Sasha Draeger-Mazer/MNS)
“A little fun fact: our estimates several years ago suggested every dollar the government invested in the human genome project led to $141 in economic returns,” said Dr. Collins, the former NIH director. “Science is responsible for more than 50% of the economic growth of the United States since World War II.”
Also present to recount their stories were several speakers who owed their lives to scientific innovations.
“Without funding research that went into developing the treatment that saved my life, I wouldn’t be here today,” said Emily Whitehead, who was diagnosed with a form of leukemia when she was five. After chemotherapy failed, she became the first pediatric patient treated with a novel experimental immunotherapy; now a sophomore in college, she has been cancer-free for nearly 13 years.
“I stand up for science because science saved my life,” she said, “and that is a fact.”
“Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill!” The crowd chanted along to Nye’s eponymous theme song. (Sasha Draeger-Mazer/MNS)
Bill Nye, perhaps the event’s most anticipated speaker, jogged onto the stage to the theme music from his signature show “Bill Nye the Science Guy.”
“The process of science, along with our hard-won scientific body of knowledge, has enabled us to feed and care for the world’s billions, build great cities, cure diseases, create global transportation and communications systems, and even know our place among the stars,” Nye told those gathered.
Gesturing towards the dome of the Capitol in the distance, he implored lawmakers to stand up to the Trump administration.
“Science is part of the American story,” Nye said. “If the United States is to lead the world, science cannot be suppressed.”
One attendee dressed up as Muppets lab assistant character Beaker, posing for photos with other rally participants. (Sasha Draeger-Mazer/MNS)
