WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Trump administration broad cuts to National Institutes of Health grants as part of the federal government’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
But in a mixed decision the court left in place a different part of the lower court judge’s ruling that threw out the administration’s guidance document that introduced the policy, raising questions about whether it can be applied moving forward.
The justices, on a 5-4 vote, granted in part an emergency request filed by the administration seeking to put a Massachusetts-based federal judge’s ruling on hold.
The court did not fully explain its reasoning, but the majority indicated that groups seeking to challenge the funding cuts have to file separate lawsuits in a different federal venue — the Court of Federal Claims.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the deciding vote in crafting the decision. Four justices, all conservatives, said they would have granted the Trump administration’s application in full, while four others — conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals — would have denied it in full.
“As today’s order states, the District Court likely lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges to the grant terminations, which belong in the Court of Federal Claims,” Barrett wrote in a concurring opinion. But, she added, “the Government is not entitled to a stay of the judgments insofar as they vacate the guidance documents.”
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a collection of agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services that receives billions of dollars from Congress to fund medical research at universities, hospitals and other institutions.
When President Donald Trump took office in January, he vowed to end so-called diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies, saying that rather than fostering equality as intended, they are a form of discrimination, primarily against white people. He has also taken aim at policies recognizing transgender rights, including access to gender transition care.
The NIH then conducted a review of grants and determined that more than 1,700 of them were not consistent with Trump’s directives and terminated them, including studies into HIV prevention and gender identity among teens.
The moves were challenged by 16 states led by Massachusetts and the American Public Health Association, among others.
After a trial, U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts ruled that the government had failed to follow correct legal processes in implementing the policy, in violation of a law called the Administrative Procedure Act.
In rushing to implement Trump’s agenda, NIH “simply moved too fast and broke things, including the law,” Young wrote.
He also said that DEI was “an undefined enemy,” noting that government lawyers had not been able to explain exactly what it meant.
Young found that there was “pervasive racial discrimination” and “extensive discrimination” against gay, lesbian and transgender people in how grants were selected for termination. He also found “an unmistakable pattern of discrimination against women’s health issues.”
Young declined to put his ruling on hold, as did the Boston-based 1st U.S Circuit Court of Appeals, which also kept the grants intact.
In asking the Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of the Trump administration, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the case is similar to another that arose in Massachusetts in which a judge blocked Trump administration plans to terminate teacher training grants on anti-DEI grounds.
The Supreme Court in April blocked that ruling on a 5-4 vote.
“This application presents a particularly clear case for this court to intervene and stop errant district courts from continuing to disregard this court’s rulings,” Sauer wrote.
Lawyers for the states pushed back on Sauer’s narrative, saying it “bears little resemblance to reality, with Young’s ruling a “run-of-the mill” example of a court intervening when the government violates the law.
The justices Thursday disagreed over whether the April decision governed the outcome in the latest case.
In a brief opinion, Roberts, who dissented in the earlier case, said it was different, with Young’s findings “well within the scope of the district court’s jurisdiction.”
But conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, in his own separate opinion, criticized Young for failing to abide by the April decision.
“Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” he wrote.
The Trump administration has regularly turned to the Supreme Court when its broad use of executive power is challenged in court and has prevailed in the majority of cases. Trump and his allies have also harshly criticized judges who have ruled against him.
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