MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When deaf students get out of college, they are less likely to find jobs in the sciences or health care or teaching. So for years, the U.S. government tried to change that and gave grants to deaf students, grants that have just been ended by the Trump administration. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.
JOSEPH SHAPIRO, BYLINE: In high school, Sara Blick-Nitko discovered her love for science. But she didn't know if there was any future in it. She was the one deaf kid at her high school.
SARA BLICK-NITKO: (Through interpreter) Who are our role models?
SHAPIRO: That's an interpreter voicing what Blick-Nitko says in American Sign Language.
BLICK-NITKO: (Through interpreter) Growing up, I never met another deaf person working in the science field.
SHAPIRO: Today, she's got her Ph.D. in pathology and works in a laboratory researching treatments for cancer. It was possible because of something called...
BLICK-NITKO: (Through interpreter) The Deaf Scientists Pipeline is something I can talk about all day.
SHAPIRO: That's a series of federal grants to deaf students to study science in high school, as college undergraduates and graduate school, and now for Blick-Nitko as a scientist in a postdoctoral program. The grants pay for things like scholarships, sign language interpretation, travel to professional conferences. But the Trump administration just ended those programs in the Deaf Scientists Pipeline. Blick-Nitko's future just got cloudy. Her lab director says he'll try to find other money to let her finish the last year of her postdoctoral fellowship.
For 24-year-old Matthew Peaks (ph), at the start of his career, things are much more uncertain. Peaks felt he'd found his calling when late last year, he went to work at a school for deaf students in New York City. He's a classroom instructional aid. He helps the high school students and teachers.
MATTHEW PEAKS: It's fun to work with what I consider to be very, very intelligent people. Everybody is very passionate about their jobs, and everybody really cares about these students and wants the best for them.
SHAPIRO: And Peaks seems like a good fit. He's the son of two deaf parents. He grew up fluent in American Sign Language. Now he wants to get his master's degree and move up to become a teacher. But the federal grant program he applied for to train teachers of deaf students just got canceled. It was at Teachers College at Columbia University. Peaks can't afford the tuition without that scholarship.
PEAKS: I definitely feel like if things had been different, I wouldn't be feeling so lost and unsure about my future.
SHAPIRO: These are small programs, a few million dollars a year. The U.S. Department of Education did not reply to a request to explain why the program for training teachers was ended. But the National Institutes of Health, which funded the Deaf Scientists Pipeline, did respond and explained it is taking action to terminate research funding that is not aligned with the administration's priorities that, quote, "directly affect the health of Americans." Gerard Buckley says the health of Americans will be affected. He's the president of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a science and technology college at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Buckley helped build the Deaf Scientists Pipeline. Now he's telling his students, the money is gone.
GERARD BUCKLEY: They're naturally upset. They tried to train for these careers and really believed they were doing the right thing. They were ready to contribute to the sciences and the treatment of diseases, a variety of things.
SHAPIRO: The canceled programs, including ones called U-RISE and Bridges, were set up to help anyone from an underrepresented group - disabled, Black, Latino, people who are the first in their family to go to college. The American Public Health Association and other plaintiffs have sued the Trump administration to restore these and other research and education grants. Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.
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