Scientific society conference includes anti-Trump talks, woke content

First on Fox: One of the world’s largest and most influential scientific societies held its annual conference last weekend, which a Fox News Digital review found was packed with examples of progressive messages and critiques of policy. Trump administrationAnd “I woke up” workshops.

Attendees attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) event, held at the Phoenix Convention Center from February 12-14, were immediately greeted at registration with identification stickers using gender pronouns such as “they/them,” “xi/xer,” “xe/xem,” and other descriptors that critics claimed had little to do with science and biology.

During the meeting Opening nightshortly after a 10-minute dance routine from Native American dancers, AAAS CEO Dr. Sudip Parikh told the audience that it had been a “difficult” and “difficult” year for science and scientists in this country.

Barrick went on to blame the DOGE for the “devastation” of “some of our science agencies” and the “president’s budget request” that “cut science in half” and, in his view, amounted to “a loss of the future.”

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2025 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. (John Tlumacki/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

“What’s happened over the past year is a rupture. We’re not going back, it’s not possible, too much damage has been done, too much has changed. There’s a whole generation of scientists who have a scar, a scar that won’t go away,” Parikh explained, adding that scars can “make us tougher” and “almost become armor” that “builds resilience.”

Barrick told the crowd that he warned about this last year Robert F. kennedy jr He was the “wrong person” for the Secretary of Health and Human Services and said, “I still feel that way,” which prompted laughter and applause from the audience.

“It will take protests, it will take politics, it will take the ability not to talk nonsense, all of that has to come together if we want to fight for the inheritance of enlightenment to continue to make this world a better place,” Parikh said.

Workshops at the event, which offered gender-neutral restrooms, included a session titled “Mao Mei Liu: Nurturing Diversity in Science is Resistance,” and another titled “Investigating the Role of Race in Clinical Decision Making.”

“Who Belongs? Disability, Power, and Participation in Higher Education”, another workshop was held.

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The 2026 AAAS Annual Conference provided guests with an all-gender bathroom and gender pronoun stickers. (Fox News Digital)

Dr. Teresa Maldonado, a world-renowned expert in electrical engineering, delivered the President’s Address at the conference and also lamented what a difficult year 2025 has been for science and suggested that climate change was responsible for the devastating wildfires in Southern California last year.

AAAS, publisher of the highly respected journal Science, posted several other videos over the next few days, many of which featured speakers who criticized the Trump administration and brought politics into the discussions.

“Colonial Legacies, Climate Crises, and the Erosion of Mobility Choice” was another workshop presented by scholars at the conference and in a workshop interview With “climate justice researcher” Jola Ajibade, she shows how climate change has benefited “a wealthy few” while “low-income communities have been displaced.”

“At the heart of my work is to give a voice but also to bring everyone’s attention to the impact of so many climate solutions, and the impact of those solutions on low-income communities, on Black communities, on Indigenous communities, on Latino communities as well,” Ajibade explained, adding that she is focused on creating a “decolonizing” approach.

Among the event’s listed sponsors is the Science Philanthropy Alliance, a group associated with progressive consulting giant Arabella Advisors through its New Venture Fund, a non-profit organization that supports a variety of progressive causes.

“All I’m sad about is that when I attended these conferences in the first Trump administration there was a lot of liberal nonsense, but it was still a celebration of science and the year’s accomplishments, and I left excited,” one event attendee told Fox News Digital.

“This year has felt like a funeral, with nothing but moaning and groaning. Why do people want to keep coming back year after year with something like this? I suspect that’s why their attendance has suffered so much this year compared to pre-coronavirus years. Their constant pleas to keep politics out of science are completely undermined by their constant whining and endorsement of sheer lunacy. They’re happy for science to be political, as long as it’s left-wing.”

In addition, as legislators in US While continuing to warn of the growing threat posed by China and what they believe is the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration of major institutions in the United States – especially in the medical and scientific fields – the AAAS conference chose to allow the Beijing-based Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to operate a pavilion at the event.

The state-run Chinese academy, which has faced controversy over its ties to the Chinese government and military, cooperated with a Chinese medical technology company linked to a 2013 US bribery case related to research funded by the National Institutes of Health. The company also has Installed equipment In leading American research laboratories.

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Protesters are seen outside a rally organized by President Donald Trump at Macomb County Community College in Warren, Michigan. (Getty Images/Dominique Gwen)

“AAAS says their organization wants to ‘inspire’ future scientists and engineers, but the session topics and materials in their meeting actually discourage participants from relying on their own efforts and merit and shift the focus to race and ethnicity,” Jonathan Butcher, acting director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, tells Fox News Digital.

“These are the same type of racist ideas inspired by DEI that have been banned on campuses and by state and federal governments because the ideas violate state and federal civil rights laws,” Butcher added. “Policymakers should be aware of what this organization does and ensure that the association does not promote racial preferences in hiring, promotion, or research awards in academia or elsewhere.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, an AAAS spokesperson said: “The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of the scientific enterprise. Topics covered were broad across scientific disciplines and proposed by scientists. AAAS respects the First Amendment right to freedom of expression.”