Judge rips Trump administration for terminating DEI-advancing NIH grants: ‘Have we no shame?’

The White House’s plan to cut the diversity, equity and inclusion movement out of medical research has hit a sizeable snag. 

On Monday a district judge in Massachusetts declared the Trump administration’s squashing of billions in NIH grants “void and illegal.” 

Unless it’s successfully appealed, the ruling will force the restoration of almost $3.8 billion across 367 grants, according to Axios.

What the grants all had in common was language supporting DEI measures. 

President Trump has suggested in executive orders and speeches that such initiatives don’t end discrimination by group identity but merely change who’s doing the discriminating and which subpopulations are getting discriminated against. 

In a ruling presented after a related trial, Judge William Young took that stance to task. He said the pullback of allocations “represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.” He added that he “would be blind not to call it out.” 

Judge Young, a 1985 Ronald Reagan nominee, wasn’t done yet. “How have we fallen so low?” he said, according The New York Times, the Washington Post and numerous other outlets. “Have we no shame?”

Those on the receiving end of the dressing down included Justice Dept. trial attorney Tom Ports. He reasoned that it’s up to the leader of the NIH, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, to decide which research projects warrant pursuing. 

Bhattacharya had made the call, Ports explained, that studies in fields like gender identity are “not scientifically valuable.” 

Also standing up for the administration was HHS communications director Andrew Nixon. He said the agency “stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritizes ideological agendas.” 

Nixon added that Team Trump may appeal Judge Young’s ruling. 

Judge Young had still more to say, and there’s plenty of coverage of the development online.