Supreme Court’s 5-4 order allows the National Institutes of Health to cut nearly $800 million in research grants while leaving open alternative legal avenues for affected researchers. The grants were terminated for failing to align with new NIH priorities, including projects mentioning diversity, equity and inclusion, gender identity, COVID and other topics banned under the Trump administration. A Massachusetts district judge had reinstated the grants and criticized the terminations as racial discrimination. The majority concluded the district court likely lacked jurisdiction and that breach-of-contract claims over grant terminations belong in the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act. The ACLU called the decision a setback and is assessing options.
The United States Supreme Court is allowing the National Institutes of Health to cut nearly $800 million in grants, though it left the door open for the researchers to seek relief elsewhere. In a 5-to-4 decision issued Thursday, the court paused a Massachusetts district court judge's June decision to reinstate grants that were terminated because they didn't align with the NIH's new ideological priorities.
The district judge, in ruling against the administration, said he'd "never seen racial discrimination by the government like this." Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the district court "likely lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges to the grant terminations, which belong in the Court of Federal Claims," with which Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr., Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh agreed.
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