So much of what is threatening our way of life is empowered by obscure governmental functions that don’t make headlines and don’t get discussed at the kitchen table.

As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaches, I am moved by some unnoticed similarities between then and now. As The New York Times’ A. O. Scott writes about July 4, 1776, “Liberty and equality were ideals yet to be realized” — They still are! — “but tyranny was a fact. The main body of the Declaration is devoted to describing manifestations in exacting detail — taxing the colonists without their consent, suspending their legislatures, keeping standing armies among them …”

The founders protested what might have been considered minor manifestations of tyranny because these incursions were the means of depriving citizens of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

I write this article to highlight a significant manifestation of tyranny that could lead to diminished health and quality of life for Philadelphia citizens.

Here’s what’s happening: The federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued a proposed rule that would revise “Uniform Guidance,” the government-wide framework for the dispersal of federal funds, giving the force of law to terminate grants for policy reasons. It would replace justified termination for compliance or performance failures with favoritism, whims, and biases. Political appointees, rather than experts and scientists, would be the final decision-makers on every grant. Uniform Guidance would affect all federal grants across higher education: hard science and medical research, AmeriCorps, TRIO, and federal work-study. I urge everyone to flood the zone with letters. Public comments are due July 13, and OMB intends for the rule to take effect October 1.

Here is why the proposed change in Uniform Guidance is even more tyrannical than the tax on tea in colonial times. Hillary Kane, Director of PHENND (Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development), learned about the power of “Uniform Guidance” when DOGE went after PHENND’s AmeriCorps grants in May 2025.

The courts overturned DOGE’s attack because the termination of the AmeriCorps grants did not follow Uniform Guidance. Aha, said the MAGA minions, let’s rewrite Uniform Guidance, especially since few people know what it is. Now PHENND once again faces the obliteration of their grants, which offer pre-college mentoring and coaching for low-income high school students, deliver counseling on the full scope of college opportunities, and run summer programming and internships providing work experience and support.

It should be self-evident that well-documented science — evolving science — is the closest we can get to reliable remedies for disease and social ills. Support for scientific discovery cannot be delegated to political cronies.

But that’s not all. No longer will scientists and medical professionals have the final say on research funding for treatment of diabetes, cancer, and other diseases. Political appointees, unprepared to judge the merit of these grants (even if they wished to do so), will dole out the money. Not only is this patronage wrong, it’s dangerous.

We can see a preview of this threat to research by what is happening now. The courts prevented the Trump administration from removing research funding from the University of Pennsylvania and other research universities. But the administration has not given up. High pressure tactics are pervasive, even to the extent of influencing professional organizations to be cowardly. Just recently at the annual conference of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), five members were removed from the conference and censored for distributing an opinion piece on health policies of the Trump administration. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that ADA leaders defended the action because of their status as a nonprofit maintaining what they called in a public statement, “a strictly nonpartisan environment at all organizational events.”

I see the ADA’s action as a chill wind moving through nonprofit, scientific organizations. It’s a pretty good guess that if the revised standards for Uniform Guidance go into effect, the names of those diabetes researchers will be blacklisted, even if they proposed new, exciting treatments for diabetes.

And what about Dr. Carl H. June, a Penn immunologist pioneering CAR-T-cell therapy, which offers dramatic new hope for cancer patients? June has invented a way to alter a patient’s own T-cells to fight the disease — and does not hesitate to speak out against government policies threatening the advancement of genetic medicine. Should he be denied research grants for political reasons? Should we be denied his expertise through the revised standards of Uniform Guidance?

The threat is real, not only to university research but to public health and well-being. We must make our voices heard now, not only in public comment to the OMB, but with protests to all Congressional representatives.

It should be self-evident that well-documented science — evolving science — is the closest we can get to reliable remedies for disease and social ills. Support for scientific discovery cannot be delegated to political cronies. That’s tyranny, and it’s our civic duty to oppose it. We don’t have to toss tea into Boston Harbor, but we do have to speak up.

Elaine Maimon, Ph.D., is the author of Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation. Her long career in higher education has encompassed top executive positions at Governors State University (IL), University of Alaska Anchorage, and Arizona State University West Campus, as well as distinction as a scholar in rhetoric/composition. Her co-authored book, Writing in the Arts and Sciences, has been designated as a landmark text. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum.

MORE FROM ELAINE MAIMON