This post was updated Sept. 23 at 12:29 p.m.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore $500 million of UCLA’s research grants Monday, reinstating the vast majority of the university’s frozen funds.
The National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and United States Department of Energy suspended about 800 of UCLA’s grants amounting to $584 million July 30 and July 31. The federal government alleged that UCLA allowed antisemitism, illegal affirmative action practices and “allowing men to participate in women’s sports” in letters reasoning the suspensions.
[Related: Federal government suspends research funding to UCLA]
Rita F. Lin, a California federal district judge, restored about 500 of UCLA’s NIH grants because the termination notices did not provide “grant-specific” explanations, according to the order. The order also restores funds across UC campuses from the Department of Defense, Department of Transportation and Department of Health and Human Services.
“Our hope is that the agency will abide by the judge’s ruling,” said Roger Wakimoto, the vice chancellor for research and creative activities, in a Tuesday email. “Taken together with the earlier reinstatement of National Science Foundation funding, this means that most of UCLA’s previously suspended federal research support should be restored for the time being.”
Lin previously issued a preliminary injunction Aug. 12, which temporarily restored UCLA’s suspended NSF grants – comprising roughly 300 of the frozen grants.
She issued the August preliminary injunction on the basis that the NIH violated her June ruling, which said the NSF could not terminate any more of the UC’s grants. Lin alleged in her order that the UCLA funding suspensions “differ from a termination in name only.”
Both orders are part of a larger suit filed against President Donald Trump and several federal agencies by UC researchers whose grants “have been or will be terminated, denied, suspended, or reduced.” The named plaintiff, Neeta Thakur, a UC San Francisco researcher, led the case following the cancellation of her grant – leading to Lin’s June injunction.
The UC Office of the President did not respond in time to a request for comment on the ruling.
A federal judge decided Sept. 3 that the Trump administration’s cancellation of Harvard University’s research funding was unlawful and said there is “little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism” in her decision, according to CBS. She added that the Trump administration’s withholding of funds jeopardized research and potential beneficiaries of that research.
Harvard is the first and only university to have taken legal action against the Trump administration to restore research funding thus far.
During the Thursday hearing, both parties repeatedly referred to NIH v. American Public Health Association, a case decided by the Supreme Court on Aug. 21, which held that a U.S. district court was likely not within its jurisdiction to review the termination of NIH grants.
Jason Altabet, an attorney for the Department of Justice, said he agreed with the ruling in NIH v. APHA – and believes the case should be decided in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
“They are victims of viewpoint discrimination,” said Elizabeth Cabraser, an attorney for the plaintiffs, during the hearing with regard to UC researchers. “They have no recourse to rectify that discrimination except in this court.”
Chancellor Julio Frenk said in an interview with the Daily Bruin on Sunday that the university is working to create “bridge funding” for projects whose grants have been suspended. Frenk previously publicly denounced the freeze, claiming that it has halted “life-saving and life-changing research.”
UC President James Milliken said in a Monday statement that the UC is working alongside elected officials – both on a state and national level – “to evaluate every option” to restore funding. He added that federal action against individual schools across the UC may extend to all campuses.
“This represents one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history,” he said in the statement. “Losses of significant research and other federal funding would devastate UC and inflict real, long-term harm on our students, our faculty and staff, our patients, and all Californians.”
Contributing reports by Maggie Konecky, Metro editor.
