By Kritika Agarwal
Last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted grant terminations after a federal judge in Boston ruled that some of those terminations were arbitrary and capricious and, therefore, “void and illegal.”
Stat reported that, on Wednesday, June 25, a senior NIH official sent a memo instructing agency staff to stop terminating grants. “Effective immediately, please do not terminate any additional grant projects. Please unrelease all grant projects that are in the cue [sic] to be terminated. Again, do not terminate any additional grant projects,” the memo read.
Later that day, another internal communication at the NIH instructed employees to reinstate, “as soon as practicable,” approximately 900 grants that the NIH had terminated and that were identified as part of the two lawsuits filed against the agency. (According to Stat, the NIH has terminated more than 2,600 grants totaling $8.9 billion.)
The lawsuits, led by the American Public Health Association and another by 16 state attorneys general, argued that the NIH’s decision to terminate grants based on their connection to issues such as gender identity; diversity, equity, and inclusion; health disparities; vaccine hesitancy, etc. violated federal law as well as congressionally mandated statutory and regulatory requirements for funding research.
In his ruling, Judge William G. Young of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts accused the Trump administration of discriminating against minorities and LGBTQ+ individuals. “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” he said, adding: “Is it true of our society as a whole? Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”
AAU had joined the Association of American Medical Colleges and six other higher education associations in submitting an amicus brief supporting the legal challenge. The associations emphasized in their brief that NIH grants are not gifts – “rather, they represent a decision by the government to fund partners who can best combine resources with federal agencies to advance science and improve human health.”
Yet, according to Axios, researchers may still have to wait to access funds as the government considers its next steps and files an appeal in the case. Following the judge’s ruling earlier this month, a spokesperson from the Department of Health and Human Services had said that the Trump administration is “exploring all legal options” and that the department “stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people.”
“Since the ruling, we are really encouraged,” Heidi Moseson, a plaintiff in one of the cases told Inside Higher Ed. “But we haven’t heard anything from the NIH about our grants being reinstated, and we don’t have a window into what that process looks like.”
Even if grants are reinstated, researchers will face additional challenges to restart projects that have been halted. As Axios reported, researchers have lost biological samples, study participants, and key lab personnel since the grants were terminated. As another plaintiff, University of Michigan Professor of Social Work Katie Edwards, told the outlet, “If this draws out [for] months, there probably will be some of our studies that are going to be, quite frankly, really hard to salvage.”
Kritika Agarwal is assistant vice president for communications at AAU.