A panel of Pennsylvania policymakers — including two Penn graduates — discussed science, policy, and higher education across the state in a Philadelphia Science Action town hall on Thursday.
The May 29 event was held at the Science History Institute and featured three Pennsylvania state representatives, including Pennsylvania state Reps. Tarik Khan (D-194) — who received a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in 2022 — Chris Rabb (D-200) — who received a master’s degree from Penn in Organizational Dynamics — and Mary Isaacson (D-175). The panelists discussed the importance of science for elite higher education institutions amid widespread federal funding cuts and scrutiny from the Trump administration.
During the two-hour conversation — moderated by Science History Institute chief storyteller and podcast host Alexis Pedrick — the representatives noted several healthcare policy efforts the Pennsylvania Congress has been planning to counteract the Trump administration’s cuts through the Pa. Congress, including investing approximately $2.5 billion back into Medicaid following program cuts from the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“The money that is good is being taken away,” Khan said. “In no world can our state tax dollars make up for that. If you take away safety and security, you take away people’s health care and funding for our schools … the money that is being taken away from the federal level is existential.”
The panelists also noted state-level success in stopping constitutional amendments to ban abortions, codifying Affordable Care Act rights regarding health insurance coverage for children, and furthering safe staffing in nursing homes.
The representatives emphasized the importance of community members speaking out to “pressure” federal lawmakers and private companies to protect scientific research and policy, noting that their budget limited the state’s efforts.
Community members in attendance, many of whom included science-oriented figures from the Penn community, also posed questions to the policymakers.
Lillias Magurie, a colorectal surgeon at Penn Medicine and Associate Program Director of the General Surgery Program, noted how the funding cuts would negatively impact early career scientists.
RELATED:
State Department announces 'aggressive' visa revocations for Chinese students at U.S. universities
Penn ISSS says suspension of visa interviews may cause ‘arrival delays’ for incoming students
“I’m watching my wonderfully educated, academically-oriented surgeons thinking about going into private practice because they're scared of the scientific environment,” she said. “I’m really worried about people not being able to get those graduate school positions, get those postdocs, for there being a brain drain out of our state and our country.”
In response to federal funding cuts, Penn reduced its graduate admissions by a third in February — alongside multiple peer institutions. In March, Penn students and faculty expressed concerns about the future of higher education following these cuts to graduate admissions rates in exclusive interviews with The Daily Pennsylvanian.
“A lot of people have no idea what’s happening on college campuses,” Khan told the DP. “They don’t know about all these other issues, about people losing their futures, about people who wanted to continue on to graduate school but now can’t do it because of the Trump administration. So I think the most important thing is that people can do is to speak out and fight back and organize.”
In response to a question from a recent Penn graduate about how lawmakers would respond if Pennsylvania institutions were targeted like Harvard, Rabb noted that institutions like Penn should utilize their endowments in responding to funding cuts. Rabb said that “more people will want to go to Penn” if the University “stand[s] up with moral courage.”
“[Penn] is aggressively wealthy,” he said. “Why don’t you use it when it’s a rainy day? It’s a monsoon.”
Penn’s endowment, $22.3 billion as of June 2024, covers approximately 20% of its total operating budget for undergraduate and graduate financial aid, faculty salaries, research, and other critical services. On March 19, the White House announced that the administration would freeze more than $175 million in federal funding to Penn, citing the University’s alleged failure to comply with an executive order barring transgender athletes from women’s sports
A Penn Ph.D. student shared that “their peer was stopped by ICE just for speaking Spanish,” and another “got their visa denied in a foreign country that is not their home country.”
“I believe University of Pennsylvania is a sanctuary campus,” Isaacson said in response. “We have to stand up for those concepts that we believe in, and certainly help our local officials on that. We will stand up and fight … certainly here in our area, as much as we can.”
“Voting and elections matter,” Khan told the DP. “The President — even though it was a very narrow win — sees this as a mandate for him to do whatever he wants and to go after immigrants aggressively, to go after diversity of thought, to go after diversity of religion, to go after people who are who are low income … to go after universities that don’t agree with him, to use the law as a weapon.”
“You have legislators here who’ve always voted to increase funding for the University of Pennsylvania,” Rabb said. “Things are down now, but I think there is a bright future.”
