On Monday, June 16, a federal judge ruled that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) must immediately restore approximately 400 grants that had been abruptly terminated by the Trump administration. The suit challenged NIH’s decision-making process for determining ‘scientific merit’ and which grants to terminate.
Judge William Young, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, determined that the agency’s decision to terminate grants in areas such as racial health disparities and transgender health were “arbitrary and capricious” and lacked a legally valid process. Further, the judge attributed the terminations to discrimination against racial, sexual, and gender minority groups. Young was appointed by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
It is widely understood that direction to terminate grants came from outside of the NIH, presumably the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The email informing researchers of the terminations claimed that the decisions reflected a shift in agency policies under President Donald Trump’s administration to deprioritize research on topics that the agency considers to be “unscientific” or supporting discrimination that is “harm[ful to] the health of Americans.” The language also mirrored Trump executive orders that attack diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, transgender health, and other charged topics – some of which continue to be blocked by temporary restraining orders.
The judge repeatedly requested NIH to describe what it considered to be unscientific matters of DEI and to differentiate it from research into health disparities, such as studies on how certain drugs or diseases affect people from diverse backgrounds.
This ruling covers only the grants held by the plaintiffs – members of specific unions or researchers in 16 states that joined the lawsuits. It does not include all the approximately 1700 grants on health disparities, vaccine hesitancy, and other topics at institutions across the country that NIH has terminated because the agency said they did not align with its priorities.
Judge Young will next consider whether his ruling should be more broadly applied to all grants that were terminated for the same reason. He may also rule on whether or how NIH will be instructed to republish calls for grant applications that were taken down because they deal with banned topics.
