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It could have been caused by a Federal Aviation Administration program recruiting workers with disabilities, he mused to reporters, offering zero evidence of a connection.

“The F.A.A. website,� Trump said, “states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism, all qualified for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, little runway.�

Leave aside that part of this recruiting effort and that there was no known connection to the airplane crash. His comments set off alarm in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, around ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and across the country among disabled people and those who help them get jobs and education.

Trump’s comments reinforced , which told administration officials to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government.�

In his order, Trump used both “DEI� and “DEIA,� the latter being an acronym that has come into use in recent years, including the word “accessibility,� a clear reference to the needs of disabled people.

Would programs helping disabled people get jobs now be considered discriminatory?

This was just one of numerous ways that Trump’s executive orders started hitting ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ans hard last week. Monday ordered a pause on federal grants and loans until they could be evaluated for compliance with the president’s executive orders.

That order was blocked by a court and , by the administration, but the impacts continue to reverberate. And the executive orders that the memo intended to implement remain, even if in many cases the orders may be illegal attempts by the president to usurp the power of Congress over spending, attempts that will ultimately be blocked by courts.

Last week, for the first time, J.J. Rico, the CEO of , had trouble drawing money, in the tens of thousands of dollars, from a federal grant. This grant is for serving people with developmental disability, with traumatic brain injury, in obtaining assistive technology or defending voting rights.

“Normally, you put in your request, and within 24 hours you get your money,� he told me Friday.

He hadn’t got it by the end of the week. He began to wonder about the future of his agency, part of a congressionally established network of protection and advocacy groups for disabled people. Could those efforts now be considered banned DEIA activities?

“All of our grants reference disability,� Rico said. “They all reference advocacy.�

Surprising impacts

Some of the impacts landed in surprising places.

The is restoring the old Vail post office, using state and federal grants to do the work, society president J.J. Lamb told me. The federal grant is $40,000 for the lime plaster on the exterior walls.

Last week, the , which handles that and other grants, notified the preservation society and other recipients that money would be frozen for a while.

The way it usually works, Lamb told me, is “We fill out a claim, then we get reimbursed.�

But this week, money wasn’t being paid out. The staff of the heritage area was helpful but didn’t know when things would get back to normal.

“This is the largest project we’ve ever taken on,� Lamb told me. “To operate under reimbursable grants, you have to have an adequate cash flow. And you have to trust that when you submit all the proper paperwork, that things are going to be reimbursed and you can keep your project going.�

The heritage area staff told her the payment site became available again Friday afternoon. Lamb is preparing to put in a reimbursement request but isn’t sure what will happen and if she’ll be able to pay contractors.

“It’s hard to have trust in the federal government that they’re going to keep their word,� she said.

UA research hit

Of course, the University of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and its researchers have been rocked by the memo and the executive orders.

The National Science Foundation and NASA both stopped making payments on grants they had previously awarded. These are among the biggest sources of research funding in the world and pay for much of the research that goes on at the University of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.

In an email, NSF said the pause occurred so they could “ensure only eligible activities� are funded, .

In many cases, the universities act as an intermediary between the agencies and the researchers. The university receives the federal funds and disperses them to the recipients. So, for a time, the universities can pay the scientists while they are waiting for the NSF or NASA to resume funding.

But that can’t last forever at a financially strapped university. And one high-flying group can’t get their money at all: graduate researchers and postdocs who get their funding directly from the NSF.

These grants are a sign of prestige, Prof. l of the U of A’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology told me.

“When they get one of these, it means the postdoc is in charge of their own research,� she said.

But now their achievements are effectively being punished. One of the victims is Marco Lopez, a mathematician from Douglas who got his bachelor’s degree from the University of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥. Lopez, who emphasized he’s only speaking for himself, now has a Ph.D in mathematics and is a postdoc doing research on at the City University of New York since September.

The funding is supposed to last three years and be paid out in monthly stipends that allow the recipients to conduct research full-time, he said. This last week, when the monthly stipend was supposed to come in, it didn’t.

“We made a three-year contract with the U.S. government. You wake up on a Monday when you’re expecting to be paid, and you’re told you won’t be paid this month, and maybe anymore,� he told me by phone from New York.

“This basically means we cannot trust our government’s word, even when it’s a legally binding contract,� Lopez said.

He had saved up some money as an emergency fund and will be OK for now, but he doesn’t know if his fellowship will continue. That’s because it’s part of the , which targets underrepresented groups.

Although funded by Congress, it could be banned because of the executive order terminating “DEI� programs until courts sort out the legality of the order.

Nonprofits, small business

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ has a disproportionately large nonprofit sector, highly dependent on federal grants. They might pass through the state government or the city government, but the funding ultimately comes from the federal taxpayer.

Eva Romero has built a consultancy writing grants for nonprofit groups. One of the big sources of funding her clients have sought are Environmental Protection Agency grants, Romero told me.

But now all that is under threat. The anti-DEI order could have some impact in that some of these grants are for “environmental justice� initiatives. In addition, to dispersing funding under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, much of which goes to environmental initiatives.

Eight or nine of Romero’s existing clients were pursuing EPA grants, she told me.

“The grants they’re applying for are not for controversial stuff,� she said. “They’re just projects that are meant to help us deal with the extreme heat and extreme wildfire danger.�

“After what happened on Tuesday, I’ve had a couple of them drop out on me,â€� she said. “As a small business owner in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, I’m already losing money.â€�

More damage likely

The impacts are likely to spread in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s vibrant nonprofit sector.

“A lot of the longstanding social service agencies are still primarily government-funded,� Jennifer Tersigni told me.

She runs a nonprofit consultancy called Raise the Bar.

“Many organizations don’t have sizeable reserves to continue their support after the decline of government funding,� she said.

They are exposed not just because they’re dependent on government funding, but also because for some years, it has been required that most grant applicants state how they will include diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as a condition of receiving grants. Now, that could be used against them.

“If folks actually read the responses of these charities, you’d think that all these organizations do DEI, but in actuality they were answering the federal government’s questions,� she said. “Depending on how deep folks want to dig, every other project might have something about DEI in it in the broadest of terms.�

That could lead capricious government officials to kill existing funding, at least temporarily. And it’s unclear how long people or groups can sustain themselves without the funding the government committed to.

“I don’t think people understand how interconnected the federal government’s funding is to everything we do,� Tersigni said.

You might argue it’s time for the federal government to cut some spending. Undoubtedly, that’s true. But the consequences of this irresponsible way of cutting spending and asserting presidential control will just grow more damaging until Congress seizes back its spending power or the courts force the government to keep its word.