The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to allow the National Institutes of Health to cancel millions of dollars in grants linked to diversity initiatives.
In the emergency application, lawyers for the Trump administration asked the justices to block a ruling by a federal judge in Boston. In June, Judge William G. Young of the Federal District Court of Massachusetts had declared some of the administration’s cuts to the N.I.H. “void and illegal.”
Judge Young, a Reagan appointee with 40 years of experience as a federal judge, had accused the Trump administration of prejudice against L.G.B.T.Q. people and of racial discrimination in targeting hundreds of grants that supported research into topics such as gender identity and equity in health care.
The judge said that during his career, he had “never seen government racial discrimination like this.”
In March, the Trump administration began to cut N.I.H. grants that focused on research on health equity, racial disparities, vaccine hesitancy and maternal health in minority communities, sometimes by scanning for certain terms.
A coalition of Democratic-led states, researchers and unions, led by the American Public Health Association, had brought legal challenges to stop a raft of cuts at the N.I.H., arguing that they endangered scientific progress.
The justices have not called for a response from the groups challenging the Trump administration cuts.
Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting.
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