Fulbright’s Future in Doubt as Trump Targets Elite Scholarship

The program’s academic freedom has been called into question after the Trump administration rejected awards.

Reshaping higher education has been a key goal of President Donald Trump in his second term, a mission that has included attacks on Harvard University and stricter scrutiny of visa applications from foreign students.

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Ryan Sutherland thought he had all the credentials needed to win a prestigious Fulbright fellowship.

A medical student at Yale University, his proposal to study HIV transmission among transgender sex workers in Malaysia had been cleared by a US Fulbright review committee. He had worked for years with the Malaysian research center where the project was to be housed.