Judge rules against NIH grant cuts — and calls them discriminatory The decision means that the US biomedical agency has to restore funding to hundreds of research projects, but the government will likely appeal.
By Max Kozlov
On 16 June at the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston, a judge ruled that the Trump administration’s slashing of some research grants is illegal. Credit: Sean Pavone / Alamy
A US judge has ordered hundreds of terminated research projects at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to be reinstated, calling the processes that led to their cancellation “bereft of reasoning — virtually, in their entirety”.
Can NIH-funded research on racism and health survive Trump’s cuts?
The ruling came about two hours after a tense hearing in which lawyers representing US researchers and a coalition of 16 states presented arguments for the first time that the NIH’s massive cuts to research are illegal. Since Republican President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, the agency has cancelled funding for a long list of research projects, including those on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), sexual and gender minorities (LGBT+) and COVID-19.
In an blistering 15-minute sidebar after issuing his ruling, Judge William Young of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston angrily excoriated the Trump administration for its targeting of research about the health of LGBT+ people and racial minorities.
“This represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. I would be blind not to call it out,” said Young, who was appointed by former US president Ronald Reagan, a Republican. “I’ve been on the bench for 40 years — I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.”
‘We were ready for this’: meet the scientists suing the Trump administration to reinstate terminated grants
This ruling, which the Trump administration is likely to appeal, means that the NIH will have to begin to disburse billions of dollars of funding that it had cancelled. “I’m thrilled and overjoyed,” Katie Edwards, an interdisciplinary public-health specialist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, told Nature. Edwards had six NIH grants cancelled and was one of the researchers who sued the agency. “What the judge said today was spot on — and it highlights the crisis we’re facing right now, where racial and ethnic minorities are being erased,” she said.
