Sen. Cruz calls out $25 million in UTEP funding as ‘Woke DEI Grants’

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Senator Ted Cruz (R - Texas) is targeting thousands of federally-funded grants awarded during the previous White House administration as "questionable projects that promoted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda," including more than a dozen grants awarded to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).

Cruz, who chairs the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, released a list this week of $2,058,717,915 across 3,483 grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded during the Biden presidency. In a release titled , Cruz said "DEI initiatives have poisoned research efforts, eroded confidence in the scientific community, and fueled division among Americans. I am proud to release our investigation’s database, which exposes how the Biden administration weaponized federal agencies to push a far-left ideology."

The list includes 17 grants received by UTEP worth $25,625,045. The largest is nearly $15 million for the Paso Del Norte Defense and Aerospace Innovation Engine, a program that was intended to kickstart advanced manufacturing and business development in the defense and aerospace industries in the region. The Innovation Engine has grant has previously faced issues and suspensions due to programmatic concerns on how it was being handled. USAspending.gov currently shows only $1 million in funds has been obligated to be paid for the grant as of this week.

ABC-7 has reached out to UTEP. A spokesperson said the university had no comment, but directed us to comments President Heather Wilson made before a congressional committee earlier in February expressing concern about how such a database was being compiled.

"My institution is a Hispanic serving institution under title five of the Higher Education Act that appears in probably every graph that submitted," Wilson said. "Which means that even if it is a piece of research on graphene particles, that it will show up as (Hispanic) in that report."

The database compiled by Cruz categorizes each grant as one or more of four categories - social justice, race, gender, and environmental justice.