type: timeline_event
On March 7, 2026 — the one-year anniversary of the movement's founding rally — Stand Up for Science organized a "Rally to Take Back Science" in more than 46 locations nationwide, including a flagship event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Demonstrators included scientists, public health professionals, students, Nobel laureates, members of Congress, and state legislators, all calling for an end to political interference in the American scientific enterprise.
The rallies were a direct response to the Trump administration's year-long campaign of research funding cuts, agency downsizing, and regulatory rollbacks across federal science agencies including the NIH, EPA, NOAA, and CDC. Stand Up for Science was originally formed in February 2025 following sweeping executive orders that dismantled federal science programs and overrode agency independence.
The March 7 action featured 25 major city rallies — including Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Atlanta, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Albuquerque — with approximately 25 additional smaller "pop-up" events in cities across every U.S. region. Speakers at the D.C. flagship event called for decision-making grounded in evidence and the public interest, and denounced what they characterized as the systematic dismantling of the scientific infrastructure underpinning American public health, environmental protection, and national security.
Data from the Crowd Counting Consortium at Harvard University documented that protests against the Trump administration during the first year of the second term were occurring at four times the rate of the first year of his first term, underscoring broad and growing civic resistance.