The following article by Anne Geanra was posted on the Washington Post website November 13, 2017:
Eight American scientists and academics were announced as winners of the prestigious prizes last month. Six of them are expected to attend a Nobel symposium at the Swedish Embassy on Tuesday. The annual event is typically timed to coordinate with a White House invitation for American winners.
“It’s just a scheduling issue,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said Monday. “The president congratulates this year’s Nobel laureates. The White House is unable to make an event work given the demands on the president’s schedule, including a 12-day trip to Asia.”
Trump concludes the nearly two-week trip to Asia on Tuesday, returning to Washington that evening. He originally planned to return to Washington on Tuesday morning, but extended his stay in Manila, the last Asia stop, to attend the East Asia summit Monday.
Although the White House event has not been held every year, it has been customary at least since the Clinton administration.
Trump’s decision for this first year in office has been a topic of interest among scientists especially, because of administration policies and decisions seen as hostile to research into climate change, pollution, pesticides and more.
The Nobel event typically takes place in mid- to late November, a tight window after the winners are announced in early October and before the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm in early December.
The decision not to invite laureates to the White House was first reported by the science and medical news website Stat News.
“We went through the regular channels, as we always do, and this year because of the travel it just wasn’t possible,” Swedish Embassy spokeswoman Kate Reuterswärd said.
Scheduling the event is often tricky because of the busy fall legislative calendar, the Thanksgiving holiday and other complications, she said.
Reuterswärd said Nov. 14 was chosen because it was the date when most of the laureates could attend. The White House told the embassy that neither Trump nor Pence could see the laureates that day, she said. Both the White House and the embassy expressed hope that the event could be held next year, assuming there are American winners, she added.
Chemistry laureate Joachim Frank of Columbia University is among the American laureates expected to attend Tuesday’s discussion and news conference at the embassy.
Frank said he was not contacted by the Trump administration either when he won or in connection with a White House invitation. In an email exchange, Frank said he would not have accepted the invitation if offered.
“I was very relieved that there would be no chance of him being present,” Frank said.
The other American winners are physicists Kip S. Thorne, Barry C. Barish and Rainer Weiss; geneticists Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young; and economist Richard H. Thaler.
Last year, the White House events for laureates was held Nov. 30, after Thanksgiving. The event, President Barack Obama’s final such meeting, was also notable for the absence of laureate Bob Dylan. The musician won the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature.
Obama did not hold the event in 2009, his first year in office, when he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He met with U.S. laureates each subsequent year of his presidency.
View the post here.