J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy
Donald Moynihan is the Ford School's J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy. Previously he served as Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy Chair of Public Policy and the director of the La Follette School at the U...
As President Trump issued an executive order turning an estimated 8,000 federal workers into at-will employees, Ford School professor Don Moynihan tells NPR that "If you were a career civil servant and there is bad news that you want to share with th...
Pam Herd and Donald Moynihan have been recognized with the 2026 Riccucci-O'Leary Award for the best article on diversity in public management, conferred by the Public Management Research Association (PRMA).
Donald Moynihan, J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy and co-director of the Better Government Lab, has been named a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow.
Don Moynihan, J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy and co-director of the Better Government Lab, received one of six stipends from the Accountability and Reform Research Consortium (AARC).
Don Moynihan cites Trump’s "almost childish impetuousness": A through line of Trump’s actions is that they are impulsive, with little consideration of the constraints or consequences. We clearly see this with Iran, where the president has shown littl...
Don Moynihan argued in an email that two factors played key roles in winning concessions from private-sector companies and institutions -- fear and threats.
The Supreme Court debates on a precedent that has protected the civil service from the executive branch for over 90 years. The Ford School's Don Moynihan calls the Trump administration's dismantling of the federal workforce an assault on civil servic...
A recent evaluation led by University of Michigan professors Pamela Herd and Don Moynihan found that reducing administrative burdens by automating Medicaid renewals helps eligible beneficiaries remain in the program and increases Medicaid coverage fo...
Ford School Professors Sam Bagenstos and Don Moynihan have signed a friend-of-the-court brief in a case before the Supreme Court related to the firing of public servants from independent federal boards.
“The tone of the language is very antagonistic and partisan in a way we don’t expect from formal messaging from agency leaders. If you had a federal employee who emailed their colleagues blaming president Trump for the shutdown, they’d be pursued for...
EXPERTS ADVISORY University of Michigan researchers are available to share their insights on a federal government shutdown at the end of the day Tuesday, unless lawmakers break the impasse and make a deal before then. Stephanie Leiser is a lecturer a...
Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, said the biggest impact of this week's exodus will be the brain drain of so many experienced civil servants, a loss of talent he says will be hard to reverse...
Don Moynihan, a tenured public policy professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor who wrote a Substack article about this conservative phenomenon, told Inside Higher Ed that “using higher education as a scapegoat for Kirk’s tragic assassinat...
Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, said Trump could have used his speech from the Oval Office to condemn all forms of political violence and emphasise the importance of tolerance as a “cornerstone for democra...
Donald Trump's second presidential term has been marked by what Ford School professor Don Moynihan describes as following a checklist for consolidating power and silencing dissent—both serious threats to democracy. In an opinion for the Detroit News,...
In his paper published in Public Administration and Development, Don Moynihan analyzes the unprecedented dismantling of USAID under President Trump’s second administration, orchestrated by Elon Musk.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order that establishes a new classification of federal workers in policy-related roles who are not career civil servants called “Schedule G.” A White House fact sheet said, that “creating Schedule G facilit...
The "Big Beautiful Bill" passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump will cause low-income Americans to lose health coverage and government food assistance, mostly because of new administrative burdens put in place. Ford School ...
As the U.S. Senate debates the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, University of Michigan experts are available to discuss elements of the proposed spending plan that stand to leave a mark on health, health care and public health.
In a recent opinion in The New York Times, "The Republican Plan to Bury Medicaid Beneficiaries in Paperwork," Don Moynihan and Pamela Herd shed light on the added administrative burdens hidden within the House budget bill.
The U.S. House narrowly passed a bill early Thursday that would slash taxes and cut Medicaid, a health care program that provides comprehensive health care services to low income adults and children. It now heads to the Senate. While major changes ma...
As the Trump administration seeks to reclassify tens of thousands of civil service jobs into political appointments, Ford School professors Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan note assert that “politicization of public services generally worsens public-s...
Moynihan: "State capacity” is hard to define and measure, and is perhaps seen as boring, but capacity is the hidden glue that holds public policy together, or, when debased, causes public policy to fall apart. If you care about the quality of governm...
Dean Watkins-Hayes, at the Congressional Breakfast in DC, with Michigan in Washington undergraduates Ajay Morelli, Malinda Brunk, Rachel Ellisen, and Isaac Davis, and Riecker Fellow Hope Wang (MPP ’25).
Through an executive order, President Trump intends to reclassify hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants' job titles as "schedule policy/career" positions. Don Moynihan from the Ford School told Reuters,"By deeming anyone involved in 'policy...
Don Moynihan, Ford School professor, said “Money is a an aggressive growing tumor at the heart of American democracy. The 2023 Wisconsin state supreme court race cost $56 million, a national record at the time. The 2025 version blasted that out of th...
