Observations on the Fulbright board resignations in the Netherlands and the state of the Fulbright Program, by Lonnie R. Johnson
On November 10, 2025, six of the twelve members of the board of the binational Fulbright commission in the Netherlands – two Americans appointed by the U.S. Ambassador acting on behalf of the Secretary of State and four Dutch citizens appointed by the Dutch government – resigned in protest to object to the unprecedented interference of the State Department in the administration of what traditionally has been heralded as the “flagship academic exchange program of the United States.”Two sets of resignations: One in Washington and one in Amsterdam
On behalf of the resigning members, David Korslund, a U.S. citizen and treasurer of the board, posted a link on LinkedIn to their noteworthy and important letter of resignation, which merits careful reading. It not only succinctly summarizes how the policies of the Trump administration have impacted on the Fulbright Program; it also sheds light on how U.S. policies have been unilaterally implemented in a program renowned for its binational governance and funding.
This document consists of three parts: a one-page cover letter, a 13-point outline of the rationale of the board members’ decision, and two attachments: (1) the cable addressed to U.S. diplomatic posts and Fulbright commissions by Secretary of State Mario Rubio signed on March 4, 2025, outlining the impact of Executive Orders on the selection processes of the Fulbright Program, and (2) the full text of the statement that 11 of the 12 members of the J. William Fulbright Scholarship Board (FFSB) submitted on June 11, 2025, which the FFSB also posted on Substack. The members of the board of the Fulbright commission in the Netherlands who resigned explicitly followed “in the footsteps of the U.S.-based Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board (FFSB)….”
Finally, it is important to note that the remaining and incoming members of the Fulbright commission board also posted a message on the Fulbright Netherlands website on November 13, 2025, thanking the six resigning board members for their service and noting that they believe that “they can best advance and safeguard the principles of the Fulbright Program by staying at the table.”
It is interesting to note that Dutch and American voices on the Fulbright Netherlands board arguing to vocally criticize the Trump administration’s unprecedented interference in the program and those seeking to tacitly accommodate it were divided six:six. In both cases, the commitment of board members to the Fulbright Program is beyond doubt. This is a good example of the kind of conundrums friends of the United States confront when they are subject to excessive unilateralism and given the choice between rocks and hard places.
Binational governance, Fulbright boards, and academic freedom: A note on the history, philosophy, and architecture of the Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Act of 1946 – expanded and amended by the Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961 – endowed the Fulbright Program with two unique, trademark features that contributed enormously to its reputation and success. First, the original statute prescribed that the United States conclude executive agreements with foreign countries interested in participating in the program, and these “Fulbright agreements” required the establishment of unique and highly autonomous binational “Fulbright commissions” – with equal numbers of U.S. and signatory power board members appointed by representatives from their respective governments. (These executive agreements are fundamentally based on the same model. The first agreement between the United States and the Netherlands was concluded in 1949 and amended by the current operative agreement in 1972.) These agreements entrusted the commissions’ binational boards with the substantial responsibilities for planning, adopting, and carrying out programs, including the selection of U.S. citizens nominated as candidates for Fulbright grants for the Netherlands and Dutch citizens for Fulbright grants in the U.S.
It is important to recognize the extent to which the 49 so-called commission countries constitute the historical and institutional core of the program. They contribute an average of over $100 million annually to the program. In many cases, they contribute more to the program than the U.S. government, and they co-sponsor roughly two-thirds of the 8,000 Fulbright awards made in any given year. (The remaining one-third of the Fulbright awards are unilaterally funded and managed by the U.S. government out of U.S. embassies in over 100 other countries. The Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961 enabled this derivative or embassy-based branch of the Fulbright Program that operates without executive agreements or binational commissions).
Second, the foundational legislation for the Fulbright Program created a “board of foreign scholarships” – rechristened the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board (FFSB) in 1990 – consisting of 12 private citizens appointed by the U.S. president in their capacities as recognized academics, experts, and educational leaders. Members of the Fulbright boards have been entrusted with establishing policies for the program, overseeing its operations, and ultimately responsible for the selection of its grantees. It was Senator Fulbright’s idea to establish an independent board of private citizens serving as the governing body for a government-sponsored program to insulate it from bureaucratic interference, partisan politics, and political propaganda. (And some people at the State Department never forgave him for this ingenious foundational act of insolence.)
The initial Fulbright Board helped create an exchange program based on academic merit, not politics, which clearly delineated itself from U.S. “information” programs and propaganda in the emerging cold war. The board established and oversaw extensive policies that made annual, open, national, merit-based competition, the rigorous expertise-based review of candidates, and the binational selection of finalists trademarks of the Fulbright Program. All subsequent Fulbright Boards have seen themselves as guarantors of the academic freedoms embodied in these policies and practices.
Violating federal statutes, abandoning precedent practices, and breaching international agreements.
To understand events leading up to the resignation of the six members of the U.S.-Netherlands Fulbright Commission it is best to first read the two attachments to their letter – Marco Rubio’s cable of March 4, 2025, and the resignation statement of FFSB board members of June 11, 2025 – in order to develop an appreciation for the chronology of events. The executive orders President Trump issued on or after January 20, 2025, that addressed “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing,” “gender ideology,” and “illegal discrimination” – Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing (EO 11451, January 20, 2025), Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions (EO 14148, January 20, 2025), Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” (EO 14168, January 20, 2025), and Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (EO 14173. January 22, 2025) – provided the conceptual framework for the State Department’s review of all its programs, which it sought to align with the administration’s policies and priorities.
On February 4, 2025, Darren Beattie was appointed Acting Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and shortly thereafter informed the FFSB and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) that he intended to review all Fulbright awards to ascertain their “alignment” with Trump administration policies. According to members of the FFSB, Beattie showed no interest in the history or statutory mandate of the Fulbright Program or appreciation for the fact that he was intervening in the tail-end of complicated ongoing and time-sensitive application, review, and grantee selection processes. The Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs systematically bypassed and ignored the FFSB to orchestrate a retroactive review of Fulbright awards that the FFSB already had finalized—or was in the process of finalizing—for the 2025-26 academic year.
On March 4, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a cable providing “current guidance” – a euphemism for a completely new policy that departed dramatically from established practices – “on the process posts and Fulbright Commissions should follow for the nomination and review of both U.S. and non-U.S. candidates for all components of the Fulbright Program for the 2025-2026 academic year and beyond.” It referenced Trump’s executive orders and unilaterally established a set of political criteria for the selection of all Fulbright grantees in the future, thus abandoning over seventy-five years of established program practice: “Candidate projects/research proposals recommended for selection under the program must be in alignment with both the specific requirements and the spirit of the Executive Orders on DEIA and Gender Ideology; as well as any other Executive Orders that may be relevant to a specific project area.” This cable alienated binational Fulbright commissions and tasked U.S. public diplomacy officers in the field, who traditionally have served on the binational boards of Fulbright commissions, to start acting in an obstructive and heavy-handed manner to advance the administration’s agendas.
Rubio’s cable and the ideologically inspired vetting processes overseen by Beattie culminated in the ex post facto elimination of an undisclosed number of designated finalists or alternates from the program: some 200 U.S. research scholars and hundreds and hundreds of other foreign scholars as well as U.S. and foreign students. Grants addressing gender and climate change were obvious red flags, but the ideological criteria used to vet awards were broadly based and included – according to reports by Fulbright commissions – minorities, women, indigenous peoples, race, discrimination, integration, and development. However, the vetting process was obviously uneven and in places arbitrary as the FFSB members stated in their letter of resignation: “It is worth noting that the awards that were overridden include studies in categories such as biology, engineering, architecture, agriculture, crop sciences, animal sciences, biochemistry, medical sciences, music, and history.”
At the end of the day, the review and revocation of Fulbright awards had all the attributes of a covert operation. It was secretive, and it is still shrouded in mystery. Based on anecdotal evidence, the frequency of revocations was higher among American scholars and students than their foreign counterparts, and the global and country-by-country distribution of revocations was uneven, with EUR leading the way followed by WHA. (Evidence is spotty because people are afraid to talk.) Little is known about the exact criteria and the methodologies used to identify and eliminate grantees from the program or the number of individuals and institutions involved in the process, and the State Department has not replied to queries by the press.
By disregarding the FFSB and its prerogatives, overriding FFSB decisions, and eliminating grants on an ex post facto basis, the State Department violated the federal statutes upon which the program has been based for over 75 years and departed from long-standing precedent practices. It also breached 49 international agreements by unilaterally articulating policies and executing grantee selections that hitherto had been in the collaborative purview of the FFSB and binational Fulbright commissions.
Concluding observations
It is much too early to predict how things will continue to play out for the Fulbright Program, and the most urgent matter at hand is securing funding for the fiscal year 2026. In May 2025, the OMB proposed to essentially eliminate State Department exchange programs by cutting ECA’s operative budget of $741 million by 93% and zeroing out funding for the Fulbright Program altogether. However, advocacy for exchanges – led by the Alliance of International Exchanges and the Fulbright Association – was robust. The bill proposed by the House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State and Related Programs in July was a substantial improvement. Although it proposed a 22% cut to the State Department as a whole, it provided $701 million for ECA programs and restored funding for the Fulbright Program completely at FY 2025 levels of $288 million. This speaks for the bipartisan popularity of educational and cultural exchanges in general and the Fulbright Program in particular.
However, countries that are generously co-funding the program but not willing to compromise on principles, like academic freedom, are quietly thinking about workarounds for the present and sooner or later may start entertaining alternatives for the future.This year, a handful of countries are funding Fulbright finalists, who were eliminated from the program for not being in “alignment” with Trump administration policies, as “plan B” grantees outside of the Fulbright Program with their own resources, and the State Department disapproves.
One of the many merits of the resignation letter by the members of the U.S.-Netherlands Fulbright Commission board was its inclusion of Secretary of State Rubio’s March 4, 2025, cable that upended existing Fulbright Program policies and procedures for the 2025-26 program year. It is an enormously important document that has hitherto barely seen the light of day, and it has not been publicly cited by organizations responsible for “the open recruitment of applicants and the merit-based nomination and review of candidates” that it prescribes.
Furthermore, the policies outlined in the Rubio cable are intact for the 2026-27 program year. Student and scholar applications for the Fulbright Program are currently being reviewed by national selection committees and peer review panels, nominations and selections by Fulbright commissions and posts are in the pipeline, and no one knows when and how the State Department will intervene to weed out those ideologically objectionable finalists, whose research proposals are deemed unacceptable after they have been selected.
Last but not least, President Trump has not appointed new board members to the FFSB to replace those who resigned last spring, and he has a statutory obligation to do so. And we still do not have an FY 2026 budget. Uncertainties abound.
Dr. Lonnie R. Johnson served as the executive director of the Austrian Fulbright commission from 1997 until 2019 and is working on a history of the Fulbright program for University of Arkansas Press with the working title Remembering and Forgetting Fulbright: A History of the Fulbright Program from Truman to Trump, 1946-2026.