In a 5-4 ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court temporarily allowed the administration led by President Donald Trump to go ahead with canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in National Institutes of Health grants tied to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Supreme Court Sides With Trump On NIH Grant Cancellations
The decision partially lifts a lower court’s order that had blocked the administration from terminating the grants, which were challenged as illegal by health groups and 16 Democratic state attorneys general, as reported by The Hill.
Five Republican-appointed justices, including Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, voted with the administration.
“Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.
Dissenters Warn Of Judicial Overreach And Bias Against DEI Programs
Chief Justice John Roberts and three Democratic-appointed justices dissented.
Roberts said the lower court’s intervention was justified, writing that the relief “falls well within the scope of the District Court’s jurisdiction.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply criticized the majority in a 21-page dissent, calling it “Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist” and claiming the ruling favored the administration unfairly.
The administration highlighted grants it considered outside Trump’s priorities, including studies on “Buddhism and HIV stigma in Thailand” and “controlled puberty in transgender adolescents.”
Federal Court Blocks NIH Grant Cuts Amid Legal Battles
NIH came under court scrutiny over allegations that the administration unlawfully obstructed its grant-making process.
In February, NIH announced updated guidelines applying a standard indirect cost rate of 15% to all grants, replacing the previous practice of negotiating separate rates.
By March, a federal court issued a nationwide preliminary injunction after NIH abruptly moved to slash and cap indirect cost rates on biomedical research grants.
The ruling blocked the policy change, affecting billions in funding and disrupting ongoing research and clinical trials.
In April, sixteen state attorneys general filed a complaint against the Department of Health and Human Services and NIH over research grant terminations.
They argued the White House had launched a coordinated effort to delay and cancel NIH grants, undermining scientific progress and threatening economic and health benefits tied to NIH-funded research.
NIH, the world’s largest public funder of medical research, had previously been credited with breakthroughs such as the rubella vaccine, HIV/AIDS treatments and the discovery of the BRCA mutation linked to breast and ovarian cancer.
Read Next:
Photo Courtesy: trekandshoot on Shutterstock.com
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Great Job Snigdha Gairola & the Team @ Benzinga – Stock Market Quotes, Business News, Financial News, Trading Ideas, and Stock Research by Professionals Source link for sharing this story.
