From Inside Higher Ed: Months after individual researchers, advocacy groups and a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general filed two lawsuits against the National Institutes of Health for terminating hundreds of active research grants misaligned with the Trump administration’s ideologies, some scientists are hopeful that the agency will soon restore the grants and allow them to resume their research. ...A federal judge in Massachusetts ordered the NIH to restore the roughly 900 grants named in the lawsuits, including many focused on studying vaccine hesitancy, LGBTQ+ health and diversity, equity and inclusion in the medical field. U.S. District Judge William Young, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, ruled the terminations void and unlawful, stating during a hearing that in all his years on the bench he’d “never seen” discrimination by the government to this extent.
...The NIH filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. It also filed a motion to stay the judge’s order to restore the grants while pending the appeal, but Young denied that motion on Tuesday, noting that a stay “would cause irreparable harm to the plaintiffs.”
“This is a case in equity concerning health research already bought and paid for by the Congress of the United States through funds appropriated for expenditure and properly allocated during this fiscal year,” the judge wrote. “Even a day’s delay further destroys the unmistakable legislative purpose from its accomplishment.” The following day, Michelle Bulls, a senior NIH official who oversees extramural funding, told staffers in an email that the agency must restore funding for the hundreds of projects identified by the plaintiffs, Science reported. “Please proceed with taking action on this request as part of the first phase of our compliance with the court’s judgment,” Bulls wrote, noting that “additional information is forthcoming.”
...Other cases moving through the courts also look promising for federally funded researchers eager to get their grants restored... U.S. District Court Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities had also unlawfully terminated grants that had already been awarded to researchers in the University of California’s 10-campus system. The judge, a Biden appointee, ordered the government to restore them, adding that she is weighing extending the order to 13 other federal agencies, including the NIH...
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