Did the White House Illegally Cancel Research Funds in California?

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Federal agencies that canceled more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year have admitted they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 to select projects that ran counter to the Trump administration’s priorities.

It’s an admission that, according to lawyers for the teacher-researchers shows that agencies illegally canceled nearly $2 billion in grants. It’s a crucial advance in the lawsuit filed by UCLA researchers against the Trump administration to permanently restore their grants. The investigators’ legal team is now asking the judge to skip the trial and formally declare that the White House has repeatedly violated the constitution, including the First Amendment. A court hearing on whether that will happen is scheduled for October 20.

Federal agencies acknowledged the existence of code words in signature clauses filed last week in federal court in a case called Thakur v. Trump who was since last spring.

The stipulations in the lawsuit show that the agencies “did not terminate grants because of alleged noncompliance with grant terms” and instead used “general criteria rather than a specific assessment of each grant’s compliance or performance,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote. Lawyers for the UC professors now argue that the admission demonstrates three broad constitutional violations:

• By using keyword searches to sift through hundreds of grants and cancel them en masse, rather than reviewing them individually on their merits, the Trump administration targeted research it deemed politically unfavorable, a violation of the First Amendment.
• Upon cancellation 283 The Department of Energy is awarding grants to states where a majority voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, and by leaving intact hundreds of grants earmarked for “red” states, the Trump administration has unfairly penalized researchers simply for living in states the White House opposes politically.
• By canceling billions of dollars in grants and not redirecting that money to other funding opportunities, the Trump administration violated the Constitution by failing to spend the money in a way that Congress specifically requires through the laws it passed on how research funds should be used.

On July 16, CalMatters emailed the U.S. Department of Justice, which serves as the federal agencies’ legal guardian, to ask if it agreed that the federal agencies’ grantmaking regulations meant the Trump administration violated researchers’ constitutional rights. A Department of Justice spokesman did not respond before publication.

Case history

Judge Rita F. Lynn in that case has repeatedly sided with the UC professors and has issued several preliminary injunctions forcing federal agencies to return the grants while she hears the merits. That includes restoring hundreds of grants at UCLA that the Trump administration tried to freeze because of his accusations that the university tolerates anti-Semitism and allows transgender women to compete on women’s sports teams.

These accusations They also got motivated a White House demand that UCLA pay $1.2 billion or suffer a new wave of research freezes. However, months before Trump sought that agreement, UCLA took steps to address anti-Semitism on campus, including creating a task force to recommend ways to create a more welcoming environment for Jewish students.

Lynn, a Biden appointee, criticized the administration for ignoring UCLA’s efforts in a preliminary injunction related to a separate case. The Trump administration’s rationale for canceling the grants did not mention remedial measures UCLA had already taken to address the problems described, Lynn wrote.

Lawyers for the professors involved in the Thakur case are now pushing for Lynn to issue a final decision ordering the return of the grants, rather than a preliminary one. Still, federal agencies can appeal Lynn’s decision to a higher court.

Lawyers for the teachers in the Thakur case write that the stakes “are enormous.” If the White House is allowed “to withdraw this funding, researchers, students and program staff who have relied on the grants to develop their life’s work will suffer significant damage to their reputations and professional careers.”

Advocates warn of potentially life-saving treatments that will never be developed, new knowledge about diseases that will remain unexplored, and the decline of the country’s global standing as an international powerhouse in publicly funded research.

Use keywords to identify disadvantaged grants

According to a review of new court documents by CalMatters, the agencies have admitted to using keywords in different ways.

Ministry of Transport identified six project grants worth approximately $42 million that had to be canceled because they sought “transportation equity,” prioritized “underserved communities,” or focused on “transportation workforce diversification” and “equity.”

The cancellation of three of those grants, led by a UC Davis professor, caused 77 researchers to abandon 79 ongoing projects. The plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote that those responsible for the projects were also forced to lay off or desperately seek funding for more than 40 research assistants, both graduate and undergraduate.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has acknowledged that it used an internal search tool to identify grants from the University of California (UC) that mentioned “health equity,” “career diversity,” “structural racism,” and “sexual orientation.” The NIH alone has suspended or revoked more than 1,000 UC grants, including nearly 700 at UCLA, related to vaccines, cancer research and health outcomes disparities. That figure was recently revealed in a court document; Last year, UCLA said nearly 500 NIH grants were canceled. The Agency for Health Research also said it is possible DOGE, the ephemeral the federal agency that billionaire Elon Musk will lead in 2025 will use artificial intelligence to identify grants that should be revoked.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote to the judge that those admissions showed that the agencies “identified the views they sought to suppress, searched the grants they funded for those who expressed those views, and revoked those grants for that reason.” That violates the researchers’ First Amendment rights, the lawyers wrote.

The Environmental Protection Agency, one of the agencies named in the lawsuit, is in the process of reaching an agreement with the UC professors’ attorneys to avoid further litigation.

Federal District Judge in Massachusetts dealt a heavy blow to the Trump administration last week in his ability to cancel grants and withhold federal funds. The White House relied on a legal phrase for many of the funding cancellations: “no longer consistent with agency priorities.” California and 22 other states sued, arguing that there was no law or right for the federal government to revoke funding based on new program goals and the wishes of the White House after the grants had already been awarded. The judge agreed with them.