Consumer group warns that National Academies use tax dollars to promote woke ideology

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(The Center Square) – Consumer advocacy group Consumers’ Research released a “Woke Alert” on the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, detailing the ways in which the institution uses taxpayer money for politically biased messaging, including imposing transgenderism onto children. 

Executive director of Consumers’ Research Will Hild told The Center Square that “the National Academies is a radical woke organization masquerading as a non-partisan educational institution.”

“From pushing transgender ideology onto kids to spreading 'defund the police' insanity, this taxpayer-supported organization regularly abuses its status and reputation to fund the left’s favorite causes,” Hild said.

“It has shamefully used hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to push a highly polarized woke agenda behind lofty BS rhetoric about independence and objectivity,” Hild said.

“Consumers’ Research will continue to hold organizations accountable for prioritizing political agendas at the expense of everyday consumers,” HIld said.

“Americans must be able to trust that the institutions they help sustain are truly neutral,” Hild stated.

When asked for comment, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine did not respond.

Consumers’ Research’s Woke Alert stated that the National Academies have “become one of the most powerful engines driving the left’s cultural and political agenda pushing DEI, transgender ideology, and a radical climate agenda on the taxpayer’s dime.”

The National Academies operate "under a congressional charter with a mission to advance America’s STEM capabilities,” the alert said.

The alert detailed how the National Academies have attempted to push transgenderism onto minors, stating that “in 2023, the organization published a workshop brief titled ‘Supporting the Health and Well-Being of Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth.’”

This workshop “echoed calls for so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for kids, citing endorsements from the American Academy of Pediatrics,” the alert said.

“A workshop that same year featured parents and transgender children as participants, with attendees arguing that classrooms should mandate ‘affirming pronouns,’” according to the alert.

Additionally, the National Academies have “published full books on reducing ‘inequalities’ facing LGBTQ+ youth, and hosted events framing gender diverse youth as victims of ‘racism, heterosexism, ableism, classism, and nativism.’”

The alert stated that such content “is better suited to an activist training session than a scientific institution.”

The National Academies have held plenty of diversity, equity, and inclusion-related workshops over the past five years, with the alert stating that the Academies “have been among the most aggressive institutional promoters of DEI in the country” as evidenced by their workshops, events, reports, and funding of certain programs all focused on DEI ideology.

Even as early as 2015, the members of the National Academies’ Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences “sought to undertake research examining ‘police split-second choices to shoot unarmed black men,’” the alert said.

The National Academy of Sciences has poured millions of dollars into leftist organizations over the years, too, according to Consumers' Research.

The Woke Alert stated that “since 2018, the National Academy of Sciences has granted millions of dollars to woke groups,” including $2.4 million to the Environmental Defense Fund, $750,000 to the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, $723,903 to the Nature Conservancy, and $399,020 to the National Wildlife Federation.

National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt “boasted” in 2021 about the fact “that the National Academies have written more reports on climate change ‘than just about any other single topic,’” the Woke Alert said.

Most recently, the National Academies have come under scrutiny from nearly half the nation’s state attorneys general for refusing to remove a chapter from its reference manual used by judges that is infused with a climate agenda, as The Center Square reported.

The state attorneys general stated they are concerned the politically biased chapter could impact “the integrity of the judicial system,” and questioned the funding of an institution that does not take action against such a problem, The Center Square reported.

The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was founded to advise the government on issues related to science, engineering and medicine,