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The Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for the Trump administration to move forward with cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in National Institutes of Health research grants, part of a broader effort to dismantle federal funding for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and transgender-related studies.
In a brief order, the court lifted a lower-court injunction that had temporarily blocked the policy, allowing the administration to cancel more than $783 million in grants while lawsuits challenging the move continue. The decision overturned a June ruling by U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston, who had said they violated federal administrative law.
The NIH, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, had been instructed earlier this year to end funding for projects the administration classified as “low-value and off-mission.” That included studies connected to DEI, gender identity, COVID-19 and vaccine hesitancy.
Plaintiffs, including 16 states and groups such as the American Public Health Association, argued the cuts swept away important research on breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV prevention and suicide, conditions that disproportionately affect minority populations. They said the terminations also scrapped programs Congress had mandated to recruit and train diverse groups of scientists.
The Trump administration countered that the lawsuits were filed in the wrong court and insisted the federal government has broad discretion over how to allocate research dollars. Administration lawyers also argued that continuing to pay for the affected grants undermined the president’s priorities and wasted taxpayer money.
Thursday’s decision marks another victory for Trump at the high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority and has repeatedly sided with his administration since his return to office in January. In April, the justices issued a similar ruling allowing the administration to cut teacher training grants linked to DEI programs.
The NIH controversy is part of Trump’s push to reshape the federal government. On his first day back in office, Trump signed executive orders directing agencies to end funding for gender ideology and DEI programs, calling them harmful to national unity.
While the Supreme Court’s ruling does not end the litigation, it allows the administration to implement the cuts immediately. For many researchers, that could mean a sudden loss of funding that supports ongoing studies and lab staff. The NIH has not said how many projects will be affected, but the terminated grants represent a substantial portion of its $47 billion annual budget.
