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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. We’ve become almost numb to the massive cuts that the Trump administration has made to federal programs. Estimates vary widely, but the sheer amount of money cut from huge federal departments has been staggering, so much so that the cut of a tiny program that costs a couple million dollars can easily be forgotten, but the recipients of these funds, deaf and blind students in Oregon, cannot and should not be forgotten. And today, on the show, you'll hear from a reporter at ProPublica who wrote an exhaustive article about how these cuts are going to deeply hurt this community. You'll hear that next, and then we'll finish out the show talking to one of our own reporters about a story of a small Western Oregon Public Radio Station seeking to go it alone without NPR. Jennifer Smith Richards, a reporter with ProPublica, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
JENNIFER SMITH RICHARDS: Glad to be here.
DUNNE: You recently wrote an article, I think it was titled, programs for students with hearing and vision loss harmed by Trump's anti diversity push. Go ahead and tell us about your article and what you found.
SMITH RICHARDS: Yeah, myself and Jody Cohen, my reporting partner on the story at ProPublica, have been following the US Department of Education and the way that it is changing under the Trump administration. This year, many people have probably noticed that grants and contracts have been cut to various education programs. And what we've learned here is that because of concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion being present in some of these programs, the Trump administration has come in and basically ended grant funding for a number of programs that serve students with hearing and vision loss. These are grants that are sent out provided to programs that are serving students directly who have what's called deaf blindness, and also teachers who are responsible for educating, you know, a relatively complex type of student in our public schools. This is money that is incredibly important to operating these programs that the federal government has decided not to provide any longer.
DUNNE: And you look specifically at several states, including Oregon, talk about what the impact would be like for students here in Oregon.
SMITH RICHARDS: So, every state has a program like this, and the funding cuts don't affect every single state, but it does affect Oregon. Oregon is one of eight states that ended up having grant funding pulled. So, in Oregon, the program there serves about 114 students, and it might surprise your listeners to know that the amount of money that we're talking about for the program in Oregon alone is about $134,000
which is not very much money, in fact, overall, for the impact of projects across the eight states. We're really only talking of little over a million dollars a year in federal money.
DUNNE: I have to ask, the other states, are they I don't know, for lack of a better phrase, somewhat blue, like Oregon?
SMITH RICHARDS: That's a great question. The answer is mostly Yes. There's a group of programs that operate in New England that covers several states, you know, obviously Oregon. And, you know, yes, there, there are some, you know, what you would consider blue states represented there. And I think that it might be interesting to know that it doesn't appear necessarily, from what we from what our reporting has shown so far, that those programs were targeted because of the state they were in.
DUNNE: But there were other things that flagged these programs to the federal government well, and talk about that, because it sounds like, if I'm hearing you right, perhaps it wasn't so much the merits of these programs. It was more about DEI.
SMITH RICHARDS: Exactly. So, these programs, each year, each grant cycle, have to submit an application for the grants, and they basically spell out what. What the program is about, what services they provide, and include some additional information. Now, what has happened with the federal government and grants and contracts in general is that the administration has been combing through the language of grants and contracts and flagging projects that seem to be misaligned with the agenda of the Trump administration. So, what that has meant in these projects is, you know, some of the projects may have submitted in their application that they intend to hire people from diverse backgrounds, to hire women, to hire military, military veterans. But it also seems like some words like within the application itself, about the work that they do, words such as transition and privilege may have been flagged. You know, for your listeners, the word transition, when it comes to students with disabilities, is an incredibly common word, it's the law actually, to plan for a school, to plan for the transition of that student from school life to adulthood. And the word you know, is very commonly used in applications. And it seems that in some places in Wisconsin, for example, those sort of transition and privilege type words may have led to the project's work being flagged.
DUNNE: So, if I'm hearing you right, they might have seen that word and thought and thought that, oh, transition must mean, for example, transitioning from a man to a woman. Because obviously, with transgender people, that word is often used, and that could be the signal to them that it could be DEI focused?
SMITH RICHARDS: That's right, yeah, that word has been a word that has raised the attention of the administration, which, again, is looking to, you know, rid itself of funding programs that support diversity, equity and inclusion of all types of people, including, apparently, students with disabilities
DUNNE: Talk about an Oregon entity called Oregon Deaf/Blind what did they say about the impact of these cuts on the people it serves?
SMITH RICHARDS: The impact, even though I mentioned earlier, you know, the amount of funding that we're talking about is actually quite small. It's incredibly consequential to the programs that serve students who are deaf, blind. Across the country, there, we're talking about maybe 10,000 children and young adults who are deaf, blind, and in this group where the grants were cut, we're talking about about 1000 children. In Oregon, we're talking about 114 children. So, it's not a very, very large program, but it is incredibly important for the programs that operate to be able to provide that technical assistance to particularly teachers, as you mentioned. You know, educators, people who are working with students who have deaf, blindness. You know, an example would be, if you were a teacher and you were looking to learn about new technology that may help your student communicate, such as like haptic technology, like when your phone buzzes and you can feel it, there's technology that is embedded this, like that, but is embedded in communication devices that are always evolving, and teachers need to learn how to use those and educate their students how to use this so that the main communicate.
DUNNE: Did you make any attempt to reach out to the US Department of Education? And if so, did they respond? What did they say?
SMITH RICHARDS: We did. We did reach out to the US Department of Education, and they did respond. They said very directly that the administration is, quote, no longer allowing taxpayer dollars to go out the door on autopilot. We are evaluating every federal grant to ensure that they are in line with the administration's policy of prioritizing merit, fairness and excellence in education. What they have said is, additionally, is that the department has actually renewed more than 500 special education grants that serve that fund services that are provided to students, and that the agency decided to, you know, to pull fewer than 35 and this was one of them, and this was one of them, and the explanation for these 35 grants to be not renewed was that the department felt that they used overt race preferences, or they perpetuated divisive concepts and stereotypes. So, the government has said they're going to put the funds toward other programs that are more aligned with the, you know, with the agenda of the department.
DUNNE: You probably can't say this, but I'm going to it really sounds, and I've heard many skeptics of the administration say something along the lines of, sometimes it really feels like the cruelty is the point in looking at a program like this, which is a rounding error when it comes to federal budgets, that you're talking about a very, fairly streamlined program that doesn't cost very much money to people who obviously need it. I mean, I can't think of anybody more deserving of help than people who have a disability like deafness and blindness. It really seems like the cut is so draconian. I guess I'm asking, you know, given that you've spent so much time following this and other things with the Department of Education, it really feels like there's an almost cruel, draconian bent to this all. I just wanted to get your reaction to that phraseology.
SMITH RICHARDS: It's been interesting so far this year to see what types of programs, and what you know, amounts of money have kind of come under the cross hairs of the administration. Many of the things that we've seen canceled or shifted have been really big-ticket items, right? Things that are costly. But to your point, this is not even a rounding error. It's a very small amount of money, and it has made advocates in particular wonder what the point of calling out these programs is. You know, we quoted in the story the co-chair of the National Deaf Blind Coalition, which is a group that advocates for, you know, legislation that supports deaf, blind children and young adults and he put it this way, he said, How low can you go? How can you do this to children? These are indeed some of the most vulnerable children in our schools. They are complex. They have complex disabilities. They require resources and training to educate them well. And you know, to your point, once again, a million dollars is really very much a drop in the bucket when it comes to the budget of the US Department of Education.
DUNNE: Yeah. Sticking with that. I know you follow the Department of Education, and obviously they have made the Trump administration have made no bones about the fact that one of their long-range plans is to wind down the Department of Education, at least federally, and sort of move it off to the States. I didn't know if, and again, we're talking about minuscule amounts of dollars. But are these kinds of cuts? Is this sort of in line with the idea that the real objective here is for a department, a large department, like the Department of Education, to no longer exist?
SMITH RICHARDS: That is the stated goal. The Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, has been extremely clear that she believes she's on a final mission, and she has a mandate from the President to end the department. She's also said that her goal is not to end all services to students, right? She wants to move some of the responsibilities that currently are, you know, under the umbrella of the US Department of Education and to other federal agencies. But otherwise, the plan is to indeed shut down a lot of what the US Department of Education does on a day-to-day basis. You know, you mentioned returning things to the States. Well, states largely are in control right now of public schools and what is taught in public schools. You know, how money is spent and federal funding is, you know, by and large, like not the primary way that most schools operate. They do not necessarily rely heavily on federal funding. So that's a long way to say it's unclear if this is an action that's being taken in pursuit of shutting down the department, or if this is an action that is being taken to more or less convey to states and to programs that that are inclusive, that do believe in equity, that do believe in diversity, that the federal government does not, does not believe most values. So, you know, is this? That's again, a long way of saying, like, is this a step towards shutting down the department, or is this simply a way to convey the values of the department and use the, you know, the funding mechanisms that the department has power over to exert that vision?
DUNNE: Well, it's a fascinating piece that you and your coauthor wrote, and it's a fascinating look into sort of where we are. Jennifer Smith Richards, reporter with ProPublica again. Thank you so much for your piece and also coming on and talking about it.
SMITH RICHARDS: Thanks for having me.
DUNNE: When Congress cut funding to NPR and PBS, we knew it wouldn't be long until major changes would happen. We check in now with our own reporter about who it's impacting. Zach Ziegler, a reporter for us here at KLCC. Thanks so much for coming in and talking with us.
ZAC ZIEGLER: Yeah. Sure thing, Michael.
DUNNE: I enjoyed your recent story. You wrote a story about KMUN, tell us about what you found.
ZIEGLER: Yeah. So KMUN recently announced it is going to be dropping NPR programming from its schedule. This is a station in the very northwestern corner of the state serving the story area as well as some of southwestern Washington state. They're just going to be going entirely community programming now, not carrying shows like Morning Edition, all things considered. Wait, wait, don't tell me fresh air
DUNNE: Remind folks, because obviously, when a local station carries those kinds of programming, there's a cost associated, isn't there?
ZIEGLER: Yeah, yeah, those programs you pay for the rights, just as KLCC here does. I think back to when I was in Arizona, and I remember hearing from a station that carried a show I produced that this helped them not carry, wait, wait, don't tell me which cost them $100,000 a year. And this was a station with a total service area of maybe 200,000 people.
DUNNE: I know you talked with the station's General Manager. I imagine she talked to other similar station sizes as have they kind of talked about this strategy?
ZIEGLER: Yeah, you know, KMUN is not the first station to be doing this. I actually came across the idea for this story from something that NPR correspondent David Folkenflik wrote, where he said, you know, this station in Oregon and a station in Alabama and a station in Florida have all dropped their NPR affiliation. That's also going on, along with the cuts we're seeing in layoffs around the country
DUNNE. And in your reporting, you know, she talked about this, the fact that she had to make a choice between programming or staff.
ZIEGLER: That is the big thing, isn't it? She said that the programming that they dropped was about the equivalent of one and a half staffers, and it mattered more to have local people working in the office to them, then it did to have these NPR shows, especially because OPB also has a signal in the area, so people can still get that NPR programming. They just maybe can't quite, you know, get it in with their local station.
DUNNE: And this relationship between KMUN and NPR goes back quite a ways, doesn't it?
ZIEGLER: Yeah, that's almost to the start of the station. I believe Susan Peterson, the station manager, told me it was something like 1985 they started carrying it because that was the only way they could get national and international news that they wanted. So, a 40 year relationship ends because they just don't have the funds they've had. They've run into problems in the past with finding the funding to keep those programs on air, and this time, it was just a little too much. It was this or go the way, like so many public media outlets we've heard about, be it, you know, cascade, PBS in Seattle, the PBS station in Redding, California, or my old home at Arizona, public media in Tucson, Arizona, with a pretty notable number of layoffs at all those outlets.
DUNNE: Yeah, I did notice that it sounds like she's getting some community support. I think even some former hosts and former reporters were saying they, they, they'd help out somehow.
ZIEGLER: Yeah, people who had, you know, maybe dropped off in recent years during the pandemic, quit doing shows. Well, now that there's these big holes in their programming log, Susan told me that she has heard from those folks saying, hey, I'll come back. I'll do my hour or two hours a week of on-air time to help you fill that gap. And they've found some other programs to fill it in. You know, it might not be all news. They're probably, she said, going to more music programming, but they do hope to keep filling the gaps that they have. You know, they have come up with alternatives for the programs that do rely on those national newscasts that we all hear at the top of the hour. So that's something that they're trying to figure out and navigate those waters for something that is completely new. Yeah, this sort of sounds like the other shoe has dropped with regard to what's happened with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
DUNNE: Zach Ziegler, reporter here for KLCC, thanks so much for coming in and talking about this.
ZIEGLER: Sure.
DUNNE: That’s the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On the Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow our somewhat regular check in with Senator Ron Wyden about all that is happening in DC. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon On The Record from KLCC, thanks for listening.
