A judge appointed by Ronald Reagan just ruled that President Trump’s cuts to DEI-related equity research grants at the National Institutes of Health were both discriminatory and illegal.
The Trump administration, led by DOGE, cut more than $1.81 billion in National Institutes of Health grants in less than 40 days. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities got the worst of it, with 30 percent of its grant funding being cut—twice the average. Grants focusing on Black women’s maternal health and HIV were also slashed. The cuts were made on the grounds that “so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) studies are often used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race.”
Today Judge William Young, 84, declared those cuts “illegal” and “void.”
“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. That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out,” he wrote in his ruling. “It is palpably clear that these directives and the set of terminated grants here also are designed to frustrate, to stop, research that may bear on the health—we’re talking about health here, the health of Americans, of our LGBTQ community. That’s appalling.”
Young continued, clearly upset with the Trump administration’s action.
“I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this…. I ask myself, how can this be?” he said. “I have the protection that the Founders wrote into the Constitution, along with imposing upon me a duty to speak the truth in every case. I try to do that. What if I didn’t have those protections? What if my job was on the line, my profession? … Would I have stood up against all this? Would I have said, ‘You can’t do this?’ You are bearing down on people of color because of their color. The Constitution will not permit that.
“Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”
Even with Young’s ruling’s spirited proclamation, there is no indication that Trump will actually follow it and reinstate the NIH grants.
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