Science requires openness

Responding to “US lawmakers propose barring Chinese and Russian citizens from DOE labs” (Mitch Ambrose, July 2024) and “White House issues new security rules for federally funded research” (Lindsay McKenzie, August 2024).

In the face of restrictions being called upon by Congress and the White House, scientists and organizations such as APS should push back and stand firm on our core fundamental values, including that science is universal, public knowledge, not restricted by racial, gender, ethnic, national, or other divisions. When proposed legislation focuses on the U.S. maintaining its leading technological edge vs. “adversarial nations,” what is good for science itself is forgotten. Science thrives and advances on open exchange and discussion. Classified research in a government laboratory may require safeguards and restrictions, but fundamental, unclassified work in our universities and elsewhere, even if funded by government agencies, should not become targets of unjustified restrictions.

Even at the height of the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet scientists traveled to each other’s countries and visited, discussed, and collaborated in universities and other open institutions. Therefore, when the current director of the White House Office of Science and Technology talks of “navigating a world characterized by fierce military and economic competition” and an “altered global landscape,” it smacks more of a current hysteria than any real objective change. This OSTP response seems to be to a presidential memorandum at the end of the Trump administration.

Because of many global political developments, these targets of Russia, China, and Iran (and always the perennial thorn of Cuba for some in the U.S.), are more a reflection of disagreements at the national level. If China is now a strong competitor in economic and technological terms, posing a challenge to unilateral U.S. dominance, then let us compete with a sense of our own self-confidence and can-do spirit. Through agencies like the FBI, those that manage immigration and border control, and others, nations control who is admitted to a country. If there is serious concern about spying, again, it is for national security agencies to counter.

National laboratories can and do police classified or defense work within fenced boundaries. But universities and places of unclassified scientific research should not become surrogates to enforce the outsourced restrictions being proposed. Whether by mail, electronic communication, or visits in person, we should be free to discuss and interact just as we do in our everyday activities of submitting work for publication, refereeing research, and having research refereed. Our other identities of race, gender, and ethnic and national origin should have no place.

— A. R. P. Rau (Baton Rouge, LA)

The views expressed in interviews and in opinion pieces, like the Opinion page, are not necessarily those of APS. APS News welcomes letters responding to these and other issues.