The National Science Foundation fired nearly 170 workers in a Zoom call on Tuesday morning as part of the Trump administration’s agenda to reduce the federal workforce. The terminated workers, who were told their employment would end at 5 pm EST today, included those still under probation, but also workers who had already completed the requisite one-year probationary period to become permanent workers and at-will workers who were considered permanent employees.
Earlier this month, however, these permanent workers were suddenly told by NSF that their one-year probationary period should have been two years and they were no longer safe from being terminated.
The Trump administration has ordered federal agencies to fire nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained permanent status, thereby receiving civil service protections. But NSF workers who believed they were safe suddenly found themselves without jobs today.
The National Science Foundation is an independent agency within the federal government that provides grants to universities and other bodies in support of scientific and engineering research. The foundation’s grants account for about a quarter of all federal support to academic institutions for research. NSF’s grants were paused in late January due to a funding freeze, but the agency resumed issuing grants following a court order early this month.
Many of the people terminated on Tuesday work as program managers and experts who make decisions about funding by aligning research proposals with the right program and matching those proposals to the most qualified reviewers to assess them and make recommendations.
“It is hard to imagine this being accomplished successfully with automated algorithms,” one fired program manager told WIRED. “With fewer program officers to steward the evaluation process, the overwhelming concern is that it will become harder to identify and support the transformative but unconventional projects that could otherwise be game changers in terms of advancing scientific progress in the USA.”
All sources who spoke with WIRED requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
Sources say 168 workers received an email at 9:02 am EST this morning requesting their presence at a 10 am Zoom call for a “Meeting with NSF probationary employees.” Many workers did not receive the Zoom link, however, and missed the start of the call. At the meeting, they were told that their network access would be shut out at 1 pm and they had until 5 pm to clear out their desks, though workers were told that accommodations would be made to obtain things they weren’t able to clear out by 5 pm.
The termination action this morning also included all permanent employees who were designated as “at-will” workers. One terminated worker tells WIRED that they were a permanent federal employee working on a part-time basis, with an annual contract that was up for renewal in September.
The decision to terminate at-will employees came from NSF alone, not from the administration, NSF management told workers during the meeting. When asked whether at-will employees were just terminated out of fairness to the probationary workers, NSF management replied that the decision was “partly due to fairness, but that’s not all.”