Judge Rejects Trump’s ‘Appalling’ NIH LGBTQ, Race Grant Cuts (1)

The Trump administration’s cuts to scientific research grants for focusing on gender and diversity, equity and inclusion are illegal and vacated, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled from the bench Monday.

“This represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. That’s what this is,” said Judge William G. Young of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. “I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.”

Young’s order comes ahead of a full written opinion he intends to later write in the case, which will offer more details on his decision.

During arguments earlier Monday, Young took issue with the Trump administration’s contention that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives fueled unlawful discrimination, challenging a Justice Department attorney on the matter in the trial over cuts to research funding.

“I understand that the extirpation of affirmative action is today a valid government position. I understand that. Affirmative action had various invidious calculus based upon race. I understand that. That’s not a license to discriminate,” Young, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, said in the battle over President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to National Institutes of Health research grants.

Young said he sees “no evidence” that DEI initiatives in question were supporting unlawful discrimination.

“Point me just anywhere in this record where it’s pointed out that any particular grant or group of grants is being used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race. From what I can see, it’s the reverse,” Young said.

Young’s decision comes in a trial over two cases against the Trump administration over the funding cuts.

In one case, the American Public Health Association, United Auto Workers Union, and others accused the NIH of unlawfully issuing a series of directives that ultimately led to the termination of grants. They contend the directives conflict with constitutional, statutory, and regulatory requirements.

Kenneth Parreno, a Protect Democracy attorney arguing for the plaintiffs in that case Monday, maintained the Administrative Procedure Act requires the NIH to make decisions on grants in a reasoned away, while the “record shows a slap-dash decision making process,” including a series of emails in which NIH leadership took “just minutes” to make a decision on grants affecting “hundreds of researchers and millions of lives.”

“The directives themselves are explicitly spelling out a process where HHS is directing and identifying these terminations, that NIH officials are, in turn, just rubber stamping them, not providing any review,” Parreno said. “What this is is a slap-dash, harried effort to rubber stamp an ideological purge.”

In the second case, a group of Democratic-led states accused the NIH of illegally canceling research grants, claiming the agency was acting beyond its legal authority and running afoul of the US Constitution.

The government “might believe as fervently as they like that NIH shouldn’t be advancing the health of transgender Americans; shouldn’t be studying disparities in underrepresented communities,” said Gerard Cedrone, deputy state solicitor for the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. “They might believe that very fervently, but Congress chose a different course in the statute, and the agency is required to carry it out.”

Young said the case “warrants a thorough written opinion.”

The plaintiffs, Young said, are charged with providing a final judgment on the issues argued before the court Monday so that “there is a basis for an immediate appeal.”

“It is palpably clear that these directives and that the set of terminated grants here also are designed to frustrate, to stop research that may bare on the health” of LGBTQ Americans. “That’s appalling.”

Young also welcomed evidence of harm so he could “more carefully and accurately frame” an injunction.

The cases are Am. Public Health Ass’n v. National Institutes of Health, D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10787, arguments 6/16/25 and Massachusetts v. Kennedy, D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10814, arguments 6/16/25.