Photo by Westend61/Getty Images

If someone had walked past the storage of the neuroscience lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May, they might have heard quiet sobbing.

It was Uma Chatterjee, a doctoral student, having a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder flare-up triggered by the pressure of disappearing research funding.

Since January, core funding from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health has faced deep cuts. The administration of President Donald Trump has cut more than $4 billion from the National Institutes of Health and $970 million from the National Science Foundation, affecting more than 7,000 grants, according to Grant Witness, a database tracked by scientists. Although a federal judge ordered the NIH to reinstate some funding, Scott Delaney, a co-founder of Grant Witness, said that “most grants that have been terminated are still terminated. They haven’t come back, and they likely won’t.”

Among the programs being targeted are those designed to expand access to science for underrepresented groups — including people with disabilities, who account for one in four adults in the U.S.

In 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration issued an executive order that prioritized their inclusion in the federal workforce. But the Trump administration has mounted a broad attack on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives, leaving some early career scientists with disabilities increasingly uncertain about their place in a field where they have long faced systemic barriers.

Chatterjee studies the biology and treatment of OCD, a neuropsychiatric disorder that affected an estimated 1.2% of U.S. adults last year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Her lab was awarded a five-year NIH grant expected to provide annual funding, but a few months ago the amount was reduced without explanation, according to Chatterjee. Now the lab is struggling to pay its staff, she said.

Disability researcher harmed

Chatterjee is not the only early career disabled scholar affected. Soli Guzman, a Mount Holyoke College graduate with multiple chronic and neurological conditions, had plans to continue research in protein biochemistry through a program that places underrepresented recent graduates in labs across the country — but those plans were upended by funding cuts.

In April, the NIH ended funding for the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program, forcing colleges nationwide to halt applications. About 50 campus-based programs were affected when DEI initiatives came under political attack, according to John Shacka, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who chairs a group of PREP program directors. After two lawsuits — one brought by Massachusetts and a coalition of states, the other by public health groups and others — challenged the cuts, a federal judge ordered the grants restored. But last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower court lacked jurisdiction, although it left in place the finding that NIH’s process was unlawful. Meanwhile, roughly half of PREP programs remain without support, according to Shacka.

When PREP was first suspended, Guzman had just finished submitting 27 applications to local programs across the country. “The ground was ripped out from under me,” they said. “I’m a planner. I always have a backup. But suddenly, Plan A and Plan B were both gone. I was devastated.”

In April, Guzman received an offer from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Because of funding delays, the university could not place them with a principal investigator until early August. At that point, the lab required them to commit within 10 days.

They turned it down.

They also faced financial and logistical hurdles: the challenge of finding affordable housing, the difficulty of quickly finding a roommate, and the need to pay out of pocket for repairs to a car that lacked proper heating. As a person with disabilities, moving would also have meant establishing a new network of care providers. “My health is at its best since 2020, and I didn’t want to change how good my health is,” they said. “If I got sick, I was stuck.”

NSF grantmaking has also stalled. Tara Lepore, a postdoctoral researcher at Western Michigan University and a grant reviewer, said NSF had paused most review activity for months. While the agency’s grantmaking process has recently resumed, many grants that were already awarded were revoked, something they had never seen before.

Lepore, who lives with multiple disabilities, studies equity in STEM education, or science, technology, engineering and math education. The NSF proposal that they submitted would have funded undergraduate and doctoral students to build collaborations between STEM instructors and neurodiverse students. In June, they heard that while the NSF grant was deemed “highly competitive,” it would not be funded because it did not align with the  administration’s priorities.

“It has all the words that the administration doesn’t like in it,” Lepore said.

In February, NPR reported that the NSF had begun using a keyword filter, flagging terms such as “diverse” and “underrepresented” to screen applications, aligning with new restrictions on DEI content.

Lepore’s project centers on “STEM,” “education” and “equity.”

Capital & Main contacted the NSF and the NIH to ask whether the cuts will affect initiatives designed to expand disabled people’s access to the workforce, education and other areas of public life.

Cassandra Eichner, a spokesperson for the NSF, pointed Capital & Main to a statement made by Sethuraman Panchanathan, the NSF’s director, in April, in which he said that the agency’s investments “should not preference some groups at the expense of others, or directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups.”

An email from the NIH press team said: “NIH and [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] are taking actions to prioritize research” that directly affects “the health of all Americans. We will leave no stone unturned in [our] mission to Make America Healthy Again.”

The New York Times reported in February that the NSF had indefinitely postponed an engineering workshop aimed at workforce inclusion for people with autism and other neurocognitive differences in the workforce.

Funding cuts worsen longstanding systematic bias

Guzman’s path to becoming a scientist has been marked by significant health challenges. In college, they developed long COVID-19 and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, leaving them mostly bedridden. They were later diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. Despite holding student leadership roles and completing three research projects, their chronic health issues affected their grade point average, which stood at 3.4.

“Disabled people are the only minority group anyone can join at any point in their life — but we’re treated like a problem,” they said. “I’ve even been told not to mention my disability in job applications because, in this political climate, it’s too risky. ”

Chatterjee, who studies biomedical science, shared that view. While she was in college, her health nearly derailed her studies. She graduated with a 1.83 grade point average and had to pursue a master’s degree before applying to doctoral programs. She said lab work remains one of the least accessible academic environments for disabled scientists.

“Our work is dependent on rigid protocols, timing and animal models. There’s almost no room for flexibility,” Chatterjee said. “In theory, there should be systems to help — accommodations, people to back you up — but in practice, the culture is incredibly toxic. People brag about working 80, 100 hours a week, skipping holidays, never taking time off. I fought tooth and nail to get here.”

And it’s not just about inclusion or justice. Chatterjee said she believes the Trump administration’s assault on accessibility represents a loss of potential.

Guzman, who is working in a lab focused on disability-related research, echoed this view. They pointed to the Norris Lab at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Regenerative Medicine & Cell Biology in Charleston, South Carolina, which studies Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and said that many in the lab live with the condition themselves. To Guzman, this is a clear example of how lived experience can drive empathy and innovation. “We’re often more flexible and empathetic because of our own experiences,” they said. “That makes a difference not just in what gets studied, but in how labs are run and how students are supported.”

Yet scientists who bring their perspective remain scarce. According to the National Science Foundation, only about 10% of STEM Ph.D. recipients reported having a disability.

“A lot of diversity fellowships end up going to people who are marginalized but still fit the mold of being ‘high-performing,’” Chaterjee said. “Disabled researchers who need real accommodations are often left out, because the system still measures worth by productivity instead of equity.”

Copyright 2025 Capital & Main. Credit and a link to the original story at Capital & Main are required when republishing.

Capital & Main is an award-winning nonprofit publication whose mission is to educate the public on matters of importance such as economic inequality, climate change, health care, threats to democracy, hate and extremism and immigration.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

A sign on the entrance to the U.S. National Arboretum says it is closed due to the federal government shut down on Oct.  1, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The first federal government shutdown in seven years has left hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed and members of the public struggling to understand what’s open, what’s closed and what might be delayed.

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau scoured agency plans published by the Trump administration and the courts, and produced this guide to help you understand what’s going on:

Agriculture Department 

The USDA plans to furlough about half, 42,300, of its nearly 86,000 employees, though workers at several programs for farm communities and rural areas will keep working without pay.

Operations will continue on some farm loans, certain natural resource and conservation programs, essential food safety operations related to public health and wildland firefighting activities. 

Agriculture Department employees working on animal and plant health emergency programs — including African swine fever, highly pathogenic avian influenza, exotic fruit flies, new world screwworm and rabies — are exempt from furloughs.  

But dozens of USDA programs addressing everything from disaster assistance processing to trade negotiations to long-term research on animal diseases will cease until Congress reaches a funding deal. 

Employees working on those programs will be furloughed until the government is once again funded, but both working and non-working federal employees in all agencies are required to receive back pay under the law. 

Agencies housed within the USDA have varying levels of furloughs. The Food and Nutrition Service, Office of the Inspector General and Natural Resources Conservation Service are among those with higher numbers of furloughed workers.

Commerce Department

The Department of Commerce will retain just over 19% of its nearly 43,000 employees during the shutdown, and most will have to stay on without pay, as outlined in its government funding lapse plan. 

The department oversees a wide range of federal government activities — weather forecasting, issuing patents and trademarks, regulating fisheries, enforcing export laws, managing government-owned and -controlled spectrum frequencies, and collecting demographics and other population data.

Notably, the department houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and will continue providing “weather, water and climate observations, prediction, forecasting, warning and related support.” But research activities will largely stop.

The U.S. Census Bureau, also part of the department, will cease most operations, including providing monthly economic indicators and updated data about disaster-impacted areas. Certain preparations for the 2030 Census will stop, as will any data collection for the American Community Survey.

Funding outside of annual appropriations may keep some U.S. Patent and Trademark Office units open, but the timelines will be variable, according to the department. When funding runs out, the office will continue “a bare minimum set of activities necessary to protect against the actual loss of intellectual property (IP) rights.”

Defense Department 

The Defense Department’s contingency plan calls for the nearly 2.1 million military personnel to keep working as normal and says 406,500 of its roughly 741,000 civilian employees will work without pay, while the others will be furloughed.  

The plan says the Defense Department believes operations to secure the U.S. southern border, Middle East operations, Golden Dome for America defense system, depot maintenance, shipbuilding and critical munitions are the “highest priorities” in the event of a shutdown. 

Medical and dental services, including private sector care under the TRICARE health care program, would largely continue at the Defense Department, though “(e)lective surgery and other routine/elective procedures in DoW medical and dental facilities are generally not excepted activities, unless the deferral or delay of such procedures would impact personnel readiness or deployability.”

Education Department 

The Department of Education said it would furlough roughly 95% of employees outside its federal student aid unit. 

The agency will continue disbursing Federal Direct Loans as well as Pell Grants, which help low-income students pay for college. 

Borrowers still have to make payments toward their student loan debt during the shutdown. 

Title I and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, grant funding would continue to be available as usual, according to the department. Title I provides funding for low-income school districts, while IDEA guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities. 

But the agency is ceasing several operations, including any new grantmaking activities. Still, the department said the majority of its grant programs “typically make awards over the summer and therefore there would be limited impact on the Department’s grantmaking.”

The agency’s Office for Civil Rights also has to pause investigations of any civil rights complaints. 

Energy Department 

The Energy Department will furlough a little over 8,100 of its 13,800 federal workers – nearly 60% of its workforce, according to its contingency plan. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration would continue maintenance and safeguarding of nuclear weapons. 

Some programs, like the medical isotope program, will require DOE to “produce additional isotopes in order to protect human life.” 

“The need to do this will depend on the length of the lapse and the stockpile of individual isotopes,” according to DOE. 

Certain programs are self-funded, such as the Bonneville Power Administration, which provides hydropower in the Columbia River Basin of the Pacific Northwest.

Environmental Protection Agency 

EPA, according to its contingency plan, will have the biggest percentage of federal employees furloughed. Nearly 90% of its workforce, or 13,400 out of 15,000, will be furloughed. 

Only agency activities that revolve around protecting human life, such as monitoring some Superfund sites and responding to emergency environmental disasters, will continue. 

Some EPA functions that will halt include issuing of new grants, publishing new research, pausing of cleanup of Superfund sites that don’t pose an imminent threat to human life, enforcement inspections and issuing of permits.

Health and Human Services Department 

The department, one of the larger ones within the executive branch that houses many of the country’s best-known public health agencies, has furloughed about 32,500 of its nearly 80,000 employees, according to its contingency plan.

Many of HHS’ activities fall under the life and property or even the national security exceptions during a funding lapse, though dozens of programs will still be affected.

HHS officials plan to ensure “minimal readiness” at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response for “all hazards, including pandemic flu and hurricane responses.”

Certain employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will keep working, albeit without pay, to monitor for any disease outbreaks. But the contingency plan says the CDC’s “communication to the American public about health-related information will be hampered.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to keep 3,300, or about 53%, of its employees during the shutdown in order to keep running core programs.

Since many of the country’s major health care programs are funded outside of the annual government funding process, they shouldn’t be affected by the shutdown, even though the employees who run the programs often rely on full-year or stopgap spending bills for their salaries.

CMS’ contingency plan says “the Medicare Program will continue during a lapse in appropriations” and that it has “sufficient funding for Medicaid to fund the first quarter of FY 2026,” which includes October, November and December.  

Additionally, it “will maintain the staff necessary to make payments to eligible states for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).”

Department of Housing and Urban Development 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website opens with a message that reads: “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”

The department says the majority of its annual grant programs, including those that provide for emergency housing for people experiencing homelessness and people living with HIV/AIDS, “continue to operate in States and local communities across the country when such grant funding has already been obligated.” 

The agency also said many of its programs “addressing imminent threats to the health and welfare of HUD tenants and children will continue where such grant funding has already been obligated before the lapse occurs.”  

For as long as the funding remains available, “monthly subsidy programs such as the public housing operating subsidies, housing choice voucher subsidies, and multifamily assistance contracts will continue to operate,” according to the department.  

However, the agency said nearly all of its “fair housing activities” will halt during the shutdown. 

Internal Revenue Service 

The Internal Revenue Service will continue normal operations using supplemental funding enacted under the Democrats’ 2022 budget reconciliation law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

The IRS will retain its 74,299 employees, according to the latest available shutdown contingency plan. 

The Trump administration has shrunk the IRS significantly this year, down from its roughly 95,000 employees, and has turned over the agency’s top leadership six times.

The agency processes about 180 million income tax returns each year.

The body that independently oversees the IRS will not operate at full capacity during the shutdown. Only 40% of employees in the department’s Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration will remain on, with a small fraction required to stay without pay if necessary, according to the agency’s plan.

As of Thursday afternoon Eastern time, the home page for that agency, tigta.gov, was blank except for the message “Due to a lack of apportionment of funds, this website is currently unavailable.”

Interior Department

A little more than half of the federal workforce for the Interior Department will be furloughed – 31,000 out of 58,600 employees – according to its contingency plan.

Some services within the agency will continue, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ wildland fire management, but programs that provide social services to foster children and residential adults will pause.

As for national parks, the trails, open memorials and overlooks will generally remain open. The National Park Service will retain minimal staff to allow for visitors. But general maintenance, trash pick-up and educational programs, will cease during the shutdown. 

Hunters or people seeking access to public lands will not be able to have their permits processed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. 

Justice Department

The Justice Department will keep a majority of its federal workers during the shutdown, according to its contingency plan. Out of roughly 110,000 employees, nearly 13,000 will be furloughed. 

Because the judicial branch will continue to function, the Justice Department will retain most of its attorneys for criminal and civil litigation. Federal law enforcement agencies and their agents will continue to work, such as the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

A shutdown typically means that immigration cases would be rescheduled and courts not located in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center will be shut down. But the Trump administration has prioritized the Executive Office for Immigration Review, housed within the Department of Justice, as essential. 

The contingency plan points to the president’s national emergency, “citing the threat to the national security and economy of the United States caused by illegal migration.”

Labor Department 

More than 75% of the Department of Labor’s employees will be furloughed, according to the agency’s contingency plan. 

Several units will come to a halt, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, Office of Disability Employment Policy, Women’s Bureau, Office of Administrative Law Judges, Administrative Review Board, and Benefits Review Board, as well as the Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board.

The agency said it will continue to support states and other agencies when it comes to administering and paying unemployment insurance benefits. 

The department notes that “unless excepted or exempt, agencies’ technical assistance, compliance assistance, regulatory, policy, research, advisories, responding to inquiries, most oversight, hearing preparation, and cooperative activities will cease.”

Job Corps centers that house students “will remain in operation while funds remain available,” and “federal oversight of those centers related to safety and property will continue,” per the department. 

Homeland Security Department 

Homeland Security will retain most of its workforce without pay. About 14,000 employees will be furloughed among its nearly 272,000 workforce, according to its contingency plan. 

That means ports of entry will remain open for inspections from Customs and Border Protection, but there could be delays in paperwork at U.S. borders. 

Most federal workers responsible for security at airports across the country – more than 61,000 Transportation Security Administration employees – would be required to work without pay. 

Another agency within DHS that will remain most of its workforce is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. About 21,000 employees out of 24,000 will continue to work. 

The office involved in departmental oversight, the Office of Inspector General, will pause its work on reports and investigations. 

And the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown will continue, with nearly all employees from Immigration and Customs Enforcement considered non-exempt, about 19,600 out of 21,000.

Several agencies within the Department of Homeland Security will remain running because they are fee-based, such as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Some visa programs within USCIS are tied to appropriations funding, so those programs will be suspended. 

That includes E-Verify, which verifies immigration status; visas for foreign doctors; and visas for non-minister religious workers. 

State Department 

A little more than half the employees in the State Department will be furloughed, about 16,600 out of its nearly 27,000-employee workforce, according to its contingency plan.

Because visa and passport services are fee-funded, they will likely not be impacted. Consular operations will be affected and diplomatic visas will only be issued in “life or death” emergencies.

Social Security Administration 

The program for America’s seniors and some people with disabilities is largely funded outside of the annual government spending process, which makes it mostly exempt from shutdowns. 

One big caveat is that the federal workers who administer the program are paid through one of the 12 congressional appropriations bills, which can cause issues during a funding lapse. 

SSA’s contingency plan says it will furlough about 6,200 of its nearly 52,000 employees until the government is fully operational again. 

The agency plans to continue “accurate and timely payment of benefits” as well as taking applications, requests for appeal, issuing and replacing Social Security cards and fraud prevention activities, among others. 

The SSA during the lapse will not conduct certain activities, including benefits verification, replacement of Medicare cards, or addressing overpayments processing during the funding lapse. 

Transportation Department

Slightly more than 11,000 of the department’s nearly 45,000 employees will be furloughed for the remainder of the government shutdown, but its leaders plan to keep several activities essential for the traveling public going during a shutdown, according to its contingency plan.

Air traffic control services and hiring, hazardous materials safety inspections, airport inspections and much more will continue, though many activities will cease. 

Some agencies within the Transportation Department will see little impact on their staffing, even though workers will not be paid until the shutdown ends. 

For example, no one at the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, or the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation will be furloughed. 

Treasury Department 

The department has individual contingency plans for its various components, including departmental offices, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of the Inspector General and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Treasury officials expect to keep about 1,850 of its more than 2,700 employees working in the departmental offices without pay during the shutdown, in part to “support the president” with “market and economic updates, economic policy options and recommendations, including those related to national security incidents.”

The Office of Inspector General, which oversees officials’ actions for waste, fraud and abuse, will keep about 30 of its roughly 150 employees working throughout the shutdown and furlough the rest. 

Department of Veterans Affairs

Large parts of the Department of Veterans Affairs, including the processing and payout of benefits, are funded outside of the annual appropriations process and will continue through the shutdown.

The department projects 97% of its staff will continue to work, and most will be paid, according to its latest publicly available shutdown contingency plan. 

Health care will continue uninterrupted at VA medical centers and outpatient clinics, and vets will still receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education and housing.

Veterans suicide prevention and homelessness programs will remain in operation, and the Veterans Crisis Line will continue to answer calls. The crisis line can be reached by dialing 988 followed by pressing 1, or by texting 838255.

The MyVA411 and PACT Act call centers will operate “as necessary to prevent disruption to mandatory VA benefit programs,” according to the department’s guide.

The National Cemetery Administration will continue to inter veterans and eligible family members, as well as schedule burials, determine eligibility and process headstone applications. However, headstone and marker installation and groundskeeping will cease, and the application assistance unit call center will be closed.

All Transition Assistance Programs, including career and financial counseling, are suspended, and the GI Bill hotline is not taking calls. 

The department’s whistleblower program is also not accepting or investigating complaints. 

Executive Office of the President

The first Trump administration posted a contingency plan in March 2018, though it doesn’t appear there is a current one and the White House did not respond to a request from States Newsroom about how it’s implementing the shutdown. 

The earlier three-page plan said the president planned to place “1068 of the 1759 EOP staff in furlough status (“Non-Excepted Staff’), while an estimated 691 EOP staff would continue to report to duty.”

President Donald Trump continues to be paid during a shutdown, as are members of Congress, under the law.

Judicial branch 

The Supreme Court will remain functioning during the shutdown, as well as the federal courts. 

By using court fees, the judiciary branch can continue with paid operations until Oct. 17, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Most proceedings and deadlines set in cases will continue, but if Department of Justice attorneys representing the executive branch are furloughed, then those cases will be rescheduled. 

Supreme Court judges and federal judges will continue to be paid due to Article III of the U.S. Constitution that specifies judge’s compensation “shall not be diminished” during their term. 

Ed Gordon, Maxine Waters, Jennifer McClellan, Rev. Shavon Arline-Bradley, and Marc H. Morial speak onstage during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation annual Legislative Conference National Town Hall at Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Sept. 25, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Congressional Black Caucus Foundation)

When Black voters stay home on election day, the results have major consequences, according to Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League.

Morial implored attendees at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference Thursday to eschew the myth that their vote does not matter.

Black voter turnout was more than 65% in 2008 when Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama became the first African American president. Turnout was similar when Obama won reelection four years later. And Democratic nominee Joe Biden also enjoyed Black voter participation of 64% during his campaign in 2020.

But in 2016, when Republican Donald Trump won his first presidential term, Black voter participation dropped to 59%. It remained the same last year when Trump won a second term against former Vice President Kamala Harris, a Black woman who was the Democratic nominee.

“We need to understand that in this country, politics and elections matter, and all this bulls— about politics and elections do not matter is the formula of these suppression campaigns,” Morial said. “We’ve got to not get caught in yesterday’s strategies and agenda and bring something new.”

With more than 100 panels and sessions, the state of democracy and federal actions impacting diversity, equity and inclusion policies, elections and voting rights was top of mind for conference attendees.

U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.) said she took time out during a trip to the National African American Museum of History and Culture with her children this year to reflect on the sacrifices made for the right to vote, among other things.

“If that means that I have to give my life so that theirs [her children] can come true, so be it,” she said. “We all need to accept that this is a pivotal moment.”

Panelists discussed the mistrust, misinformation and unpredictability in Washington, D.C. and around the country.

Years ahead of the decennial census, Trump has pressed Republican-led state legislatures to redraw congressional districts in an attempt to hold the slim GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives during midterm elections in 2026. Several states, including Texas, Indiana and Ohio are discussing the issue.

Meanwhile, Missouri lawmakers recently passed a newly gerrymandered map of the state’s eight districts that Gov. Mike Kehoe has said he will sign this weekend. The change could give Republicans an advantage in a district held by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat.

The NAACP challenged the process in court before the new map was approved. Other lawsuits seek to void the map because the Missouri constitution requires lawmakers to draw districts every 10 years after the census.

“The legislature rushed through a mid-decade redraw pushed by Donald Trump himself,” said U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.), who co-hosted a panel on the judiciary. “Not because Missouri has asked for it, but because he knows he can’t win fairly. 

“We need independent, transparent processes that put people before politics, and we need to stay organized because Trump and his allies are relentless, so we must be too,” Bell said.

Panelists acknowledged it will be difficult for Democrats to make substantial changes right now with Congress controlled by Republicans and the U.S. Supreme Court holding a 6-3 conservative advantage.

But the one constant mentioned dozens of times during the discussion: People should vote.

Christopher Bruce, policy and advocacy director for the ACLU of Georgia, said the proof lies in the numbers with about 90 million people who didn’t vote in last year’s election.

“If you are not in this democracy, what happens? Literally…it becomes a dictatorship,” Bruce said. “The democracy is set up for you to win. The question is, do you want to have that power to make this happen? And if you don’t, the people are going to take away your life all together.”

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) told attendees they have a responsibility to vote because of the blood spilled by their Black ancestors for that opportunity, which helped secure the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It paved the way for the election of 62 Black congressional caucus members as well as 50 Latinos and 20 Asians.

“We have a responsibility, an obligation, to make sure that we do exactly what they did. They marched on,” Green said. “The battle is not over. Yes, we are comfortable. Yes, we have nice cars, but don’t confuse comfort with liberty. Don’t confuse it with liberation. Don’t confuse it with freedom.”

Then U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin testifying against the U.S. Army during the Army-McCarthy hearings in Washington, D.C., June 9, 1954. McCarthy stands before a map which charts Communist activity in the United States. (Photo by Getty Images)

Driven by “a lineup of disgraceful racial bigots and American fascists,” a divisive political crusade by conservatives in the United States was “like a gigantic, tumultuous hurricane” that “dominated the thoughts and actions of the American people, disrupting their emotions, distorting their judgment ….” Those are the words of Michigan Republican Charles E. Potter, a member of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, who, in his 1965 book “Days of Shame,” repudiated the excesses of the McCarthy era.

I read Potter’s 60-year-old mea culpa in David Maraniss’s powerful personal history, “A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father,” (Simon & Schuster 2019), which traces the Maraniss family’s harrowing journey to Madison, Wisconsin. The anti-McCarthy Capital Times newspaper saved Maraniss’s dad, Elliott, giving him a job after he was blacklisted and then followed from town to town by federal agents investigating his political activities over “five years, five cities, four kids, eight homes, two papers that fired him, three papers that folded,” as Maraniss writes.

I binge-read the book amid a storm of news as the administration of President Donald Trump ramped up attacks on leftwing activists, Democrats, progressive nonprofits and the media, blaming them for the killing of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, and vowing to attack what White House adviser Stephen Miller called a “vast domestic terror movement,” using the full force of the federal government to “identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks.” 

I reached out to Maraniss Thursday in Madison, where the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author grew up and still spends summers. ABC had just indefinitely suspended late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for criticizing the MAGA movement’s weaponization of the Kirk shooting. And Trump and his FCC chairman were threatening to yank broadcasting licenses from media outlets that criticize the president.

I wanted to ask Maraniss about the parallels he sees between the time he describes so vividly in his book and the current moment. 

“There are several obvious haunting similarities,” he told me on the phone, “the demonization of others, the calling of all opponents Marxist or communists or enemies of the state, the gross manipulation of truth, the use of fear to stifle dissent and pressure to silence the media or get the press to go along.”

“Back then,” he added, “most of the press did go along with McCarthy for a long time.”

The Capital Times stood out as an early critic of Wisconsin’s bombastic Red-hunting senator, Joseph McCarthy. Syndicated columnist Drew Pearson was another prominent anti-McCarthy voice, along with Murrey Marder of the Washington Post and Edward R. Murrow — all mentioned in Maraniss’s book. “But you could cite many more that were going along with McCarthyism.”

The main difference Maraniss sees between the McCarthy era and today is that “McCarthy was only a senator, and now we’re dealing with the president, with full control of the levers of power which McCarthy did not have, ranging from the Justice Department to the military.”

McCarthy took aim at major U.S. institutions — from government agencies to  universities to Hollywood to mainline Protestant churches — but he overstepped when began attacking the U.S. Army, infuriating then-President Dwight Eisenhower. 

Another glaring difference between then and now, Maraniss added, “is that McCarthy did not have the full support of his own party, the Republican Party.” Today, “almost any Republican who opposed Trump is now no longer in office or in the party.”

It took a long time, however, for mainstream media and mainstream Republicans to turn against McCarthyism and for the public to swing from the distorted thinking former HUAC member Potter finally repudiated to the consensus that leftwing political ideology did not, in fact, pose an existential threat to U.S. national security.

Among the many echoes of Red Scare fever resonating through national politics today is the central issue of race. One of the most gripping scenes in Maraniss’s book is future Detroit Mayor Coleman Young’s testimony before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in the Federal Building in Detroit. Young, a World War II veteran, confronts the southern racists on the committee as they question his loyalty, repeatedly correcting their slurring pronunciation of the world “Negro.” Despite the committee’s high-handedness and multiple attempts to silence him, Young has the last word. 

“I fought in the last war and I would unhesitatingly take up arms against anybody that attacks this country,” he says. “In the same manner, I am now in the process of fighting against what I consider to be attacks and discrimination against my people. I am fighting against un-American activities such as lynchings and denial of the vote. I am dedicated to that fight and I don’t think I must apologize or explain it to anybody, my position on that.”

Reading about Young and the other brave souls who stood up to McCarthyism, including the elder Maraniss’s lawyer, George Crockett, who was jailed for contempt and returned to continue fighting, is inspiring and thrilling. 

In contrast, Maraniss traces the sordid history of U.S. Rep. John Stephens Wood, a Democrat from Georgia and chairman of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan (though he claimed he only went to one meeting). He lays out the evidence that Wood attended the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish industrialist who was accused of killing of a young, female factory worker in Georgia. Wood was the “wheelman” for Judge Newt Morris, his mentor, helping to collect the body from the lynchers and drive it to the morgue. 

White racists, as Potter later acknowledged, played a prominent role in the McCarthy era purges of “un-American” activists. These were the people who sat in judgment of civil rights leaders, Black unionists and activists for racial equality. Maraniss’s father, an antifascist who joined the Communist Party when he was in college at the University of Michigan, led an all-Black battalion in World War II, and dedicated his life to his idealistic view of America, was the target of people who had little respect for equal rights or the Constitution.

Who are the real patriots, Maraniss asks — a question that resonates today.

“Race is at the center of American life, then and now,” Maraniss said on the phone. “And what we’re facing this time is really an attempt to erase the civil rights movement.”

“The chairman of the House un American Activities Committee that went after my father was a Georgia racist who was elected in white-only primaries and opposed every civil rights measure, and he was the one defining what’s an American,” he said. “And you have a similar thing going on now where Charlie Kirk is celebrated on NFL stadium screens and people are being fired left and right, for criticizing someone who disparaged Martin Luther King.”

It’s important not to be cowed by the deliberate use of language as a weapon to promote misunderstanding, he said, “as they have with DEI. I mean, what is on its face wrong with diversity, equity and inclusion, you know? Think about it. I mean, the same thing with being antifascist. I mean, people should embrace those ideas and not run away from them.”

Of his parents, Maraniss writes: “They never betrayed America and loved it no less than the officials who rendered judgment on them in Room 740 of the Federal Building in Detroit. They were dissenters who believed the nation had not lived up to its founding ideals in terms of race and equality, largely because of the reactionary attitudes of self-righteous attackers on the American right.”

The book ends happily. The Maraniss family arrived in Wisconsin in time to watch the Milwaukee Braves play their way to a pennant and eventually beat the Yankees in the World Series. “McCarthy was dead. The Supreme Court had essentially overturned the Smith Act, ruling it was unconstitutional to bring charges against American citizens solely because of their political advocacy. … The world was opening anew.”

But there is, of course, no real end to the struggle. In an epilogue, Maraniss writes about Cap Times reporter John Patrick Hunter, who, long after the Red Scare was safely over,  typed up sections of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, combined it with a petition listing six of the 10 amendments to the Bill of Rights, along with the Fifteenth Amendment granting Black men the right to vote, then roamed a local park in Madison trying to collect signatures. “He gave the people the nation’s foundational truth and it did not go well,” Maraniss writes. “Of the 112 people he asked to sign the petition. Only one did. Twenty accused him of being a communist.”

“It is an endless struggle,” Maraniss said on the phone. “That’s what life is. And you know, it tends to go in cycles of reaction and counter reaction. This is a very, very difficult one of those cycles. But I’ve been an optimist my whole life. It’s being challenged like never before in my life. My father endured it and came out an optimist anyway, somehow. So to honor my father, I maintain my optimism.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

The Cole family and their attorney's talk to press outside the federal courthouse. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

For the second time, a federal trial in the 2020 shooting death of Alvin Cole by then-Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah ended in a hung jury on Thursday. Deliberations began shortly after 5 p.m. on Wednesday, going until around 8 p.m. Jurors returned Thursday morning, and deliberated for a total of nearly 10 hours, more than doubling the amount of time deliberations lasted during the first trial, before deciding that they were hopelessly deadlocked. Plaintiff attorneys asked the jury for a total of $9 million ($5 million in compensatory damages, and $4 million in punitive damages), a figure far lower than the $22 million they asked for last time. 

Following the trial, Mensah attorney Joseph Wirth said “it’s still proven a difficult case for the jury to reach a conclusion.” Wirth and his partner, attorney Jasmyne Baynard, declined to talk about settlement discussions with the media, but said they plan to talk to the jurors. “We have felt strongly about the merits of this case,” said Baynard. “I’ve felt strongly about my representation of Joseph Mensah and every other police officer that I represent. Feel strongly about his actions in this situation, and we’re going to go forward under that belief.”

Cole family attorneys Kimberly Motley and Nate Cade said that while they wanted a different outcome, “We are pleased that it was a hung jury.” Motley stressed that “it’s important for the public to be aware that Joseph Mensah killed three people in five years as a Wauwatosa police officer, that’s really important, and that this jury did not believe what he was saying. Now we have a jury that came back — and they were hung — but they deliberated longer, they had more evidence, and the evidence is just not good for him.” Motley said that Mensah’s story “doesn’t make sense.”

During deliberations, jurors asked for transcripts of interviews of officers on the scene of the Cole shooting conducted by the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), a request initially denied by Judge Adelman, due to questions about whether the interviews had been admitted as evidence. Later, Adelman reversed his decision and allowed the jury to see MAIT interviews of officers David Shamsi and Evan Olson. The two officers gave contradicting statements to MAIT investigators in 2020 about whether Cole moved or pointed his gun shortly before Mensah fired. Jurors also asked for Mensah’s deposition testimony, in which plaintiff attorneys say Mensah implied that when he fired on Cole, he was only concerned about his own safety. On the stand this week, Mensah said that he fired to protect himself and everyone else around Mayfair Mall. 

Throughout the trial, defense attorneys argued that the unrecorded officer interviews by MAIT were little more than hearsay, and attempted to limit the jury’s access to them. Besides arguing that MAIT reports are hearsay in the second trial, defense attorneys noted in the first trial that officers are not under oath when they talk to investigators after a police shooting. The debates in court raised questions about the policies and practices that MAIT relies on when investigating officer-involved deaths, which also inform whether prosecutors will charge officers with crimes after killing civilians. 

Baynard said that “I don’t think that we’re in a position to comment on MAIT’s investigation, and truly that was not really an issue in this case to be decided, so no, I don’t have any issues.” Baynard added that, “I have seen plenty of MAIT investigations, I have seen plenty of investigations done by the [state Division of Criminal Investigation], I think they did a fine investigation here. I think that sometimes people forget that officers in these situations are afforded the exact same rights as anybody else would be afforded, and beyond that I’m not really interested in commenting on MAIT’s protocol.”

Cade stressed that the MAIT statements “are not heresy, ’cause they’re the statements.” Calling the heresy argument “nonsense”, Cade said that the problem with MAIT “is that they allow the officers to make decisions about it being recorded.” While Cade accepts that Mensah himself may have Fifth Amendment rights in such a case he said “the other officers don’t”. By contrast, civilian witnesses are recorded far more often than officers after police shootings. “Why do they bend over backwards for officers who are not even directly involved in terms of shooting,” asked Cade. “That’s a handicap. They said that MAIT was supposed to be designed to give the public confidence. How can you have confidence if you’re not going to tape officer’s conversations, so we know exactly what they said?”

Wirth said that Mensah “is absolutely disappointed that we weren’t able to obtain a verdict today,” adding that Mensah is no longer in law enforcement, “and it weighs heavily on him.” Wirth said “it’s a very important case to the Cole family, it’s a very important case to Joseph Mensah.” 

The last day of testimony

On Wednesday defense attorneys called Joshua Boye, a video editor and graphic designer who reviewed squad car video from the Cole shooting. Boye testified that he had been paid by defense attorneys to edit the video as they directed by modifying audio, adjusting color and contrast, and adding a “spotlight” around Cole as he ran.

During cross examination, plaintiff attorneys drew attention to a timestamp in Boye’s video which does not appear in the raw version, leading plaintiff attorneys to question whether Boye had been given an altered version by defense attorneys. Later on, when this issue was raised again, Judge Adelman said that he hadn’t seen anything to suggest that the video had been tampered with. Boye repeatedly said that any edits he made to the video were done “at the direction of attorneys.”

Wauwatosa officer Evan Olson, who was one of the officers who responded to Mayfair Mall the night that Cole was killed, testified as uniformed Wauwatosa officers flowed into the courtroom to sit around Mensah’s wife, as they had during each day of the trial. A Wauwatosa PD spokesperson said in a statement to Wisconsin Examiner that “some officers chose to attend the trial in uniform to show their support for a former colleague, which is not uncommon in high-profile cases. Their attendance was voluntary and did not impact patrol staffing or the department’s ability to respond to calls of service.” 

Cole’s family, as well as the parents of Jay Anderson Jr., Mensah’s second fatal shooting in 2016, also attended every day of the trial. Motley and Cade took issue with the presence of uniformed Wauwatosa officers. “This isn’t the city of Wauwatosa,” said Motley, “so I was kind of concerned about what was happening in the city of Wauwatosa with all these police officers that came in uniform to sit in court for hours and hours, for a person who no longer works for Wauwatosa as a police officer, and is no longer a Wauwatosa officer period. So I think that the taxpayers should demand why that happened.”

Cade called the uniformed officers’ presence intimidating for the jury. “We aren’t allowed to say anything about the thin blue line and backing the blue, but it was obvious,” he said. During the first trial plaintiff attorneys were told that the Cole family was not allowed to wear any clothing with messages about Alvin. 

Olson testified that he arrived at Mayfair Mall responding to a report about disorderly conduct  involving a gun. After arriving, Olson immediately encountered at least two teens who were part of Cole’s group, and ordered them to the ground. Off in the distance, he could see Cole running from officers and mall security, before hearing a single shot. Olson testified to seeing Cole “in what I would say is a low ready position,” similar to a stance taken in football. He said that Cole pointed a firearm at him, making him move out of the way of what he thought would be more gunfire, and prepare to shoot himself. Olson called Cole a “lethal threat”, and said that after Mensah fired, Cole went from the football-like position to lying prone on the ground. Plaintiff attorneys argued that Olson was seeing Cole in the act of falling. Olson kicked the gun from Cole’s hand and assisted in CPR. 

Olson, Mensah and Shamsi gave contradicting statements, opening  the door for the trial. Both Olson and Mensah said that the gun was pointed in their directions, but they were positioned on opposite sides of the parking lot. Shamsi, who was the closest officer to Cole, testified that Cole and the gun didn’t  move after Cole fell. Olson said he didn’t think other officers who didn’t see the gun move were lying. Every officer testified that foot pursuits are dangerous, unpredictable situations especially when guns are involved. 

When Olson left the stand, he took a seat in the gallery near Mensah’s wife and the other Wauwatosa officers. Olson, like the rest of the officers, was uniformed every day of the trial. On Thursday, when the jury continued deliberations, Olson and a Wauwatosa police sergeant came to court in civilian clothes.

Sarah Hopkins, a civilian witness, claimed to have been outside the Cheesecake Factory restaurant when she saw Cole being chased by mall security. Hopkins said that Cole stopped running at one point, making her think that he was surrendering, but then that he turned and pointed a gun at the officers. Hopkins said that Cole “was like fumbling around” and that “all of a sudden we hear rapid shots.” Plaintiff attorneys questioned the fact that Hopkins described Cole doing a motion which no one else described seeing. Davion Beard, a former Mayfair Mall security guard, initially helped to locate the group of teens, and participated in the foot chase. Beard, who ran track, testified to essentially being the closest person to Cole with just a foot or two separating them. When the first shot was fired, Beard said he dropped to the ground, with Shamsi not far behind him, and that he didn’t see Cole crawl, turn his body, or point a gun. 

Testimony concluded with Mensah’s attorneys calling Michael Knetzger, a certified instructor in Defense and Arrest Tactics (DAAT) and former Green Bay police officer. Knetzger repeatedly implied that the jurors should put themselves in Mensah’s mindset at the moment of the shooting. When cross examined, plaintiff attorneys drew attention to Knetzger’s lack of “real world experience” dealing with shootings and homicides, and that his doctorate and degrees had come from online universities including one that marketed itself as the nation’s “most affordable online Christian University.”

During closing arguments Cade reminded the jury that Cole was a kid who made stupid decisions like many young people, including his own sons who Cade called “knuckleheads.” Cade stressed that “for Joseph Mensah to be right, everybody else has to be wrong,” referring to the testimony from multiple officers, Beard, and other witnesses that Cole had not turned toward Mensah or moved after he fell to the ground. Cade said that Olson testified to support his friend Mensah, and that Mensah himself had  incentive to change his story.

Attorney Baynard, representing the defense, said that Cole made “catastrophically dangerous” decisions which went beyond the sort of mistakes people make when they’re young. Baynard said that “police are not required to gamble with their lives”, and that while Cole’s death was tragic, “we are in court today because of his actions.” Baynard said that “Cole was in control of the situation” and that “he was driving the bus”, saying in her closing argument that “I’m not sure how many more opportunities he should have been given to comply.” Baynard described the turning motion Cole allegedly made as “a quick shift,” and made claims about prior witness testimony which Cade later refuted.

The Cole family said they are undeterred by Thursday’s hung jury. “We’re a strong united family,” said Tracy Cole, Alvin’s mother. Despite the hung jury, Cole said that she is encouraged because “somebody sees that my son was killed for no reason,” and that she believed her son was killed as he attempted to surrender. 

“We are going to fight you Joseph, we ain’t gave up Joseph,” she added. “And my lawyers ain’t gave up.” 

Motley echoed the sentiment. “It’s a good result,” she said of the hung jury, “and we’re going to keep fighting…because this is an important case.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE