(LifeSiteNews) — The National Institutes of Health will ban colleges and universities from federal funds if they support DEI measures or if they boycott Israeli companies.
The policy, posted on the agency’s website earlier this week, states that it will terminate funding for organizations that violate federal anti-discrimination laws. Among those laws now includes “refusing to deal, cutting commercial relations, or otherwise limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies or with companies doing business in or with Israel or authorized by, licensed by, or organized under the laws of Israel to do business.”
The directive comes on the heels of a controversial executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January that directs the federal government to “combat anti-Semitism.” It also comes as Trump announced Yehuda Kaploun, an Israeli-born citizen, as his new anti-Semitism czar earlier this month. The Trump administration has also threatened to pull federal funding of Ivy League schools it has deemed to not be doing enough to combat anti-Semitism.
The developments have caused Anti-Defamation League director Jonathan Greenbelt to applaud the president’s efforts, but some conservatives worry that free speech is being infringed upon in order to silence voices that are simply shining a light on Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Students have called on their universities to take steps to ensure they are not complicit in the crimes being committed in the Middle East. Republican who support Israel have characterized their demands as being anti-Semitic.
The NIH is currently lead by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. The agency falls under the purview of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy is known to have a close relationship with notorious Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has sought to cancel Candace Owens and recently expressed support for globalist Cardinal Pietro Parolin as the next pope of the Catholic Church. Whether Boteach induced Kennedy to usher in the new directive to further pressure institutions of higher learning remains to be seen.
According to CNN, the NIH is “the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. It issues roughly 60,000 grants a year to nearly 3,000 universities and hospitals. More than 80% of the agency’s $48 billion annual budget is channeled to those research grants.”
