SCOTUS Sides With Trump Administration Over NIH Grants Tied to DEI Initiatives

The U.S. Supreme Court continues to issue emergency orders involving legal challenges to policy changes made under President Donald Trump, with the latest being, National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association, 606 U.S. ____ (2025). 

On August 21, 2025, the Court granted the Trump Administration’s request to stay a district court’s judgment prohibiting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from terminating more than $780 million in federal grants linked to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), gender identity, and COVID-19 research.

Facts of the Case

Shortly after taking office, President Trump issued a series of executive orders regarding the new Administration’s new policy regarding DEI initiatives. The first order, titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” instructed the director of the Office of Management and Budget, assisted by the attorney general and the director of the Office of Personnel Management, to work to end “discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI” programs in the federal government. 

It was followed by two other executive orders, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” and “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.”

NIH subsequently issued internal guidance documents implementing the Administration’s priorities. The guidance stated that, going forward, the agency will not fund research related to DEI objectives, gender identity, or COVID–19, nor will it continue the practice of awarding grants to researchers based on race. After review, NIH issued numerous decisions terminating existing grants. Various plaintiffs subsequently sued, challenging the guidance documents and their individual grant terminations under the APA.

On July 2, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated both the guidance documents and the grant termination decisions. It found that NIH’s termination of the grants had been “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the APA. As Judge William Young explained, while “a new administration certainly is entitled to make changes — even unpopular or unwise changes” – it can’t “undertake actions that are not reasonable and not reasonably explained.”

On July 18, 2025, the First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump Administration’s request for a stay, determining that the challengers faced greater potential harm from the grant terminations than the Administration would suffer in the absence of a stay.

Supreme Court’s Decision

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court granted a partial stay. Justice Amy Coney Barrett cast the key vote on each issue.

First, Justice Barrett, along with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, voted to allow NIH to terminate the grants. According to the majority, the federal district court likely lacked jurisdiction under the APA to vacate the NIH’s grant termination decisions, which belong in the Court of Federal Claims (CFC).

The majority largely relied on the same reasoning adopted in Department of Education v. California, which stayed a lower court’s ruling that had blocked the U.S. Department of Education’s termination of education-related grants that promoted DEI initiatives. In that case, the Court held that the APA’s “limited waiver of [sovereign] immunity” does not provide the District Court with jurisdiction to adjudicate claims “based on” the research-related grants or to order relief designed to enforce any “‘obligation to pay money’” pursuant to those grants.

With regard to the NIH grants, the majority also found that the Government would be irreparably harmed by spending funds on grants that could not be recouped. “[W]hile the loss of money is not typically considered irreparable harm, that changes if the funds ‘cannot be recouped’ and are thus ‘irrevocably expended,’” Justice Barrett explained. “The Government faces such harm here.”

“The plaintiffs do not state that they will repay grant money if the Government ultimately prevails,” she added. “Moreover, the plaintiffs’ contention that they lack the resources to continue their research projects without federal funding is inconsistent with the proposition that they have the resources to make the Government whole for money already spent.”

A different group of justices, including Justice Barrett, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, voted to keep the lower court’s ruling on the guidance documents in place.

“That the agency guidance discusses internal policies related to grants does not transform a challenge to that guidance into a claim ‘founded . . . upon’ contract that only the CFC can hear,” Justice Barrett wrote. “So the District Court was likely correct to conclude that it had jurisdiction to entertain an APA challenge to the guidance, and it would be confusing for our disposition of this application to suggest that the CFC is the right forum for that claim.”