This neglects that prior administrations were often the origin of these demands, wanting to see how research impacted broader society. They were also, often eno

This neglects that prior administrations were often the origin of these demands, wanting to see how research impacted broader society. They were also, often enough, an ideological cover for the intelligence community to find US-friendly assets in foreign nations. Identity politics is an explicit soft power strategy of very many of the last administrations whose defence/intelligence budget funded some of this research. The situation is vastly more complex than you imagine, and has far less to do with "woke administrators gone rouge". The unstated target of much of this is the intelligence (, and defence to a lesser degree) community, which runs USAID, and plays a very significant role in research funding, and the like. The right has never been targeted in the way the left was, until Trump -- and many in his upper circle are now taking revenge.