President Donald Trump speaks while Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens during a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission Event held in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A federal judge heavily criticized the Trump administration for slashing National Institutes of Health research grants aimed at minority groups, declaring these cuts illegal and a clear act of racial discrimination.
U.S. District Judge William Young, based in Boston, ordered the reinstatement of funds to these research projects on Monday. This ruling came from a lawsuit filed by 16 state attorneys general and other organizations against the Trump administration for canceling NIH grants. The administration’s actions were connected to two executive orders: one targeted “discriminatory” DEI programs, and the other proclaimed that federal funds should not support gender ideology.
Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said he had “never seen government racial discrimination like this” in his 40 years on the bench.
“I am hesitant to draw this conclusion — but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it — that this represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community,” Young said on Monday, per Politico. “That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.”
“You are bearing down on people of color because of their color,” Young reportedly later told administration lawyers. “The Constitution will not permit that. … Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”
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The judge asked government lawyers to offer a formal definition of DEI, according to The Associated Press, appearing dubious that grants could be canceled for that reason when Congress appropriated funds to address health disparities.
The Trump administration is “exploring all legal options” Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, told The Associated Press; an appeal is likely.
“HHS stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people,” he added.
In a statement to Politico, a White House spokesman had harsher words.
“It is appalling that a federal judge would use court proceedings to express his political views and preferences,” White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai said. “How is a judge going to deliver an impartial decision when he explicitly stated his biased opinion that the Administration’s retraction of illegal DEI funding is racist and anti-LGBTQ?”
The lawsuit concerns only some of the NIH grant cuts. Thomas Ports, a Justice Department attorney, claimed some grants have been renewed but others are not “scientifically valuable,” per Axios.
But plaintiffs argued earlier this month that the Trump administration did not raise specific concerns about certain grants but rather “dispatched a tsunami of boilerplate termination letters to plaintiffs’ institutions,” causing confusion in the middle of the academic year.
