Judge Voids Hundreds of NIH Grant Terminations, Saying He Had Never Seen Discrimination So Palpable

On June 16, 2025, U.S. District Judge William Young of Massachusetts ruled that the National Institutes of Health's mass termination of research grants was unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act and ordered the affected awards restored for the plaintiffs. The terminations had swept up projects the administration associated with diversity programs, transgender health, vaccine hesitancy and other disfavored subjects. The consolidated cases were brought by researchers and public-health groups represented by the ACLU and by a multistate coalition led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Young, a Reagan appointee with four decades on the bench, said from the bench that the record showed racial discrimination and bias against LGBTQ people, remarking that he had 'never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable.'

The ruling is one of the sharpest judicial findings to date about the reasoning behind the administration's science funding cuts, and it treated grant cancellation as agency action reviewable for arbitrariness rather than as unreviewable discretion.

The court reserved further questions, including whether NIH had unreasonably delayed processing new applications. The administration appealed.