The National Science Foundation went beyond the staff cuts demanded by the Trump administration in a move that set off a frenzied backlash at the science funding agency.
NSF fired about 10 percent of its staff at the end of Tuesday, removing 168 people who included most of the agency’s probationary employees and all of its experts, a class of contract workers who are specialists in niche scientific fields.
The agency didn’t have to fire its experts but decided to in the interest of fairness, a top NSF official told staffers in an emotionally charged hybrid meeting Tuesday morning at its Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters.
“The removal of experts was completely at the agency’s discretion. Because if we’re asked to remove probationers, then we also need to remove at-will employees,” Micah Cheatham, NSF’s chief management officer, said at the tense and tearful hour-long meeting, according to a transcript obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News.
