US Supreme Court lets Trump cut diversity-related NIH grants

By Andrew Chung

Aug 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court let President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday proceed with sweeping cuts to National Institutes of Health grants for research related to racial minorities or LGBT people, part of his crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and transgender identity.

The justices, in a 5-4 decision, granted the Justice Department's request to lift Boston-based U.S. District Judge William Young's decision in June that the grant terminations violated federal law, while a legal challenge brought by researchers and 16 U.S. states plays out in a lower court.

In a brief order, the majority suggested the challenge to the terminations should have been brought in a different judicial body, the Washington-based Court of Federal Claims, which specializes in money damages claims against the U.S. government. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's three liberal justices dissenting from the decision.

The justices, however, also by a 5-4 majority, declined the administration's request to immediately pause Young's broader ruling that declared the agency's internal guidance explaining the rejection of funding for DEI and gender identity research as unlawful.

The NIH is the world's largest funder of biomedical research. The cuts are part of Trump's wide-ranging actions to reshape the U.S. government, slash federal spending and end government support for programs aimed at promoting diversity or "gender ideology" that the administration opposes.

The administration said Young's ruling required the NIH to continue paying $783 million in grants that run counter to its priorities.

The administration repeatedly has sought the Supreme Court's intervention to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.

After Trump signed executive orders in January targeting DEI and gender ideology, NIH instructed staff to terminate grant funding for "low-value and off-mission" studies deemed related to these concepts, as well as COVID-19 and ways to curb vaccine hesitancy.

Young's ruling came in two lawsuits challenging the cuts. One was filed by the American Public Health Association, individual researchers and other plaintiffs who called the cuts an "ongoing ideological purge" targeting projects based on "vague, now-forbidden language." The other was filed by the states, most of them Democratic-led.

The plaintiffs said the terminated grants included projects on breast cancer, Alzheimer's disease, HIV prevention, suicide, depression and other conditions that often disproportionately burden minority communities, as well as grants mandated by Congress to train and support a diverse group of scientists in biomedical research.

Young, an appointee of Republican former President Ronald Reagan, invalidated the grant terminations in June. In a written ruling, the judge said they were "breathtakingly arbitrary and capricious," violating a federal law governing the actions of agencies.

During a June hearing in the case, Young rebuked the administration for what he called a "darker aspect" to the case that the cuts represent "racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ community."

"I've never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable," the judge said.

Young also said the cuts were designed to stop research that bears on the health of the LGBT community. "That's appalling," the judge said.

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on July 18 denied the administration's request to put Young's decision on hold.

At a July 28 hearing, Young said that if the Supreme Court pauses his previous order he may convene an immediate hearing to impose a new injunction that would require NIH to restore a subset of the $783 million in grants to the extent they were terminated due to racial and gender discrimination.