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PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

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Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#31

Post by wrs »

djoldman wrote: post #26

> These terms included affirming the statement that we “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws .” (Emphasis mine) I'm curious if any lawyer folks could weigh in as to whether this language means that the entire sentence requires the mentioned programs t…

If it was simply an agreement that the recipient won’t violate Federal law, it wouldn’t need to be stated (how could the intention be otherwise?). So I read it as an agreement to an interpretation that doing those things would violate the law.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#32

Post by f33d5173 »

bakugo wrote: post #19
jLaForest wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you are not reading this correctly, but I suspect that was willful

> No you are not reading this correctly Okay, so can you help me interpret that correctly, then? What other conclusion should I draw from this?

"Or" means at least one of multiple alternatives. Alteratives contrast with each other, they differ. Of course, the original author could be repeating the same thing for emphasis, but more likely they are saying two different things. Since the second thing is discrimination, the first thing, "DEI", must necessarily not be discrimination. If they merely wanted you to not discriminate, they could have just said "follows federal anti discrimination laws" which are quite stringent.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#33

Post by throwaway091025 »

dang wrote: post #310

[stub for offtopicness / flamewarness / guideline-breakingness] (this is a rough cut - I know there are other posts left in the thread that arguably belong here, but this time I'm in a bit of a rush) (please, everyone, you can make substantive points thoughtfully but do so within the guardrails at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - avoid the generic-indignant-flamey-snarky-namecalley-hardcore-battley…

[flagged]

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#34

Post by dragonwriter »

bakugo wrote: post #15
dang wrote: post #310

[stub for offtopicness / flamewarness / guideline-breakingness] (this is a rough cut - I know there are other posts left in the thread that arguably belong here, but this time I'm in a bit of a rush) (please, everyone, you can make substantive points thoughtfully but do so within the guardrails at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - avoid the generic-indignant-flamey-snarky-namecalley-hardcore-battley…

> do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws. So basically, the PSF wants to discriminate, the government doesn't want them to do so, and that's a problem? Am I reading this correctly?

No, the PSF doesn't want to expose its finances to special risk from the Trump Administration’s attempts to paint inclusion as discrimination as a pretext for exerting control that the law itself does not justify over institutions receiving federal funding, finding the risk:reward ratio unjustified for a $1.5M grant. (Note that the actual term purports to prohibit only what the law already prohibits, which is a clue that a naive reading cannot reveal their motive, since under a naive reading they would be equally risk for the behavior that would violate the terms whether or not ot agrees to them or received the grant. So you have to look beyond the agreement to the context of the behavior of the Trump Administration in regards to the issue addressed in the terms and federal funding.)

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#35

Post by georgemcbay »

ponow wrote: post #27
bilekas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems very un-American. The government dictating how you run your business ? > “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.” Is that even legal to add such an arbitrary and opinionated reason to a government grant? I applaud them for taking a stand, it…

Federal funding of research is un-American.

> Federal funding of research is un-American.

Federal funding of research created the Internet that you are posting this idiocy on.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#36

Post by throwaway091025 »

rectang wrote: post #28
bilekas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems very un-American. The government dictating how you run your business ? > “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.” Is that even legal to add such an arbitrary and opinionated reason to a government grant? I applaud them for taking a stand, it…

Anti-DEI forces, once in power, turn out not to favor putative “diversity of opinion” after all.

[flagged]

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#37

Post by fn-mote »

paloblanco wrote: post #30
arusahni wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PSF and several other organizations that provide public package registries wrote an open letter [1] announcing a joint effort to make this situation more sustainable. I'll be interested to see where it goes. [1]: https://openssf.org/blog/2025/09/23/open-infrastructure-is-n...

Thanks! I want to bring this up as a discussion point when I get the chance at work. I can't find a date on this letter - is it recent?

The date is at the top of the letter and in the url...

September 2025.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#38

Post by bakugo »

skrebbel wrote: post #20
bakugo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws. So basically, the PSF wants to discriminate, the government doesn't want them to do so, and that's a problem? Am I reading this correctly?

Oh come on. The language means that if PSF at any point, maybe years from now, at some conference or wherever maybe somehow supports or hosts a panel about diversity and inclusion, the NSF can force them to pay the money back, even though it's already spent. That's not "wanting to discriminate", it's a free ticket for a rogue government to bully the PSF without a good argument, if it ever sees fit. Even if I were an…

[flagged]

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#39

Post by numbsafari »

aspir wrote: post #29

This isn't good for the PSF, but if these "poison pill" terms are a pattern that applies to all NSF and (presumably) other government research funding, the entire state of modern scientific research is at risk. Regardless of how you, as an individual, might feel about "DEI," imposing onerous political terms on scientific grants harms everyone in the long term.

The direction of political winds shift over time. An organization like the PSF cannot assume an open-ended liability like that. DEI today, but what tomorrow? As we have seen, political leadership in the US has shown itself to be unreliable, pernicious, and vindictive.

US leadership is undermined by the politicization of these grants. That is something that members of this community, largely a US-based, VC-oriented audience, should be deeply, deeply troubled by.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#40

Post by takluyver »

dboreham wrote: post #12
bilekas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems very un-American. The government dictating how you run your business ? > “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.” Is that even legal to add such an arbitrary and opinionated reason to a government grant? I applaud them for taking a stand, it…

The fascist language is a no-op because it optimizes to: "don't violate federal laws" which presumably is reasonable.

I would imagine it is much easier to enforce as part of a grant agreement that organisations have signed. Especially if the law is either not really a law (yet), or it might be invalidated by a court on free speech grounds. There's probably a reason someone wrote it into the grant agreement, and that they're declaring DEI stands for something other than the familiar Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
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