Trump’s policies cut funds that help Charlotte rape survivors | Opinion

I think we all can agree we want to help survivors of sexual violence. The Trump administration’s new policies for the National Institutes of Health are undermining our ability to do that.

A research grant worth more than $450,000 awarded to UNC Charlotte was recently terminated because the grant “no longer effectuates agency priorities.” Our research funded by this grant focused on improving the reactions that survivors of sexual violence receive when they disclose that experience to a friend.

You may be thinking this research sounds pretty innocuous, so why was this grant terminated? Our grant was focused on helping LGBTQ+ survivors of sexual violence. The termination was due to our inclusion of LGBTQ+ participants.

It is important to lay out some basic facts. First, LGBTQ+ people exist. They have always existed across time and geography, and they exist here in Charlotte. A 2021 Williams Institute report indicates that there were nearly 74,000 LGBTQ+ individuals in Charlotte at that time. Second, LGBTQ+ people experience sexual violence at double to triple the rate of non-LGBTQ+ people. Third, LGBTQ+ people who experience sexual violence have worse health outcomes, including higher levels of PTSD, depression, anxiety and physical symptoms, and are more likely to use drugs and alcohol to cope with their victimization.

It is imperative that we develop interventions that are inclusive of these indisputable facts. By doing so, we can improve the health and well-being of all survivors of sexual violence, which can lead to a better Charlotte.

Our study was doing just that — designing an intervention to teach people how to respond more helpfully when a survivor of sexual violence discloses that experience. Our study happened to focus on LGBTQ+ individuals because we wanted to include those who experience disproportionate risk for sexual violence. Charlotte is a hub for LGBTQ+ individuals from surrounding counties. Terminating this grant means Charlotte will be less safe and less healthy.

Not only is this grant termination a huge loss to the scientific and public health community, it will also impact vulnerable students at UNC Charlotte. The grant funded six student employees.

Lab experiences for students help build well-qualified and skilled employees, many of whom will continue to call Charlotte their home beyond graduation. We will have to terminate their employment, which will impact their ability to pay rent, eat and shop in our community. Additionally, this federal grant was also the first NIH grant for the early career researcher, usually a gateway for future funding opportunities. This means that UNC Charlotte’s ability to obtain funding in the future is being hijacked because of politics that are not rooted in facts or science. This comes on the heels of UNC Charlotte’s proud designation as an R1 university, which classifies the university as top tier for research. That designation will be threatened if we cannot get and keep federal funding.

Our total grant budget was slightly over $450,000, and we were only about six months into the planned three-year project. The overwhelming majority of this money was going to support faculty, staff and student salaries for Charlotte residents.

Ours is one drop in the bucket of canceled grants locally and nationally, but highlights the ripple effects of this harmful re-prioritization. This money will no longer be infused into the local economy, with research demonstrating that every $1 of NIH funding generates approximately $2.46 of economic activity. That’s over $1 million in lost economic activity for Charlotte.

The sweeping terminations of grants like ours are hurting the advancement of science, the needed services for sexual violence survivors and the economic prosperity of our community. We call on you to resist our federal administration’s continued elimination of funding for those who need it most — our community can’t afford not to. Raise your voice by contacting your local, state and national representatives and expressing your disapproval of federal funding terminations for survivors of sexual violence.

This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Trump’s policies cut funds that help Charlotte rape survivors | Opinion."