Fulbright board resigns citing interference by Trump administration

WASHINGTON: All members of the board that oversees the US State Department’s Fulbright Programme, which facilitates international educational exchanges, have voted to resign over alleged political interference from President Donald Trump’s administration, the board said on Wednesday.

The Trump administration had unlawfully “usurped the authority” of the board by denying awards to a “substantial number” of people who had already been selected for the 2025-2026 academic year through a yearlong, merit-based process, the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board said in a statement posted on the website Substack.

The department is also putting another 1,200 Fulbright recipients through an “unauthorised review process” that could lead to more rejections, according to the statement.

The board members chose to resign “rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise US national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago,” they said.

The State Department didn’t immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. The New York Times reported the board had approved the applications of around 200 American professors and researchers who were set to work at universities and research institutions in other countries this summer, and the State Department was meant to send acceptance letters to the applicants in April.

Instead, board members learned the department’s Office of Public Diplomacy had begun sending rejection letters to the scholars based on the topics of their research.