In his 40 years on the federal bench, U.S. District Judge William Young said he’d never seen a case where “racial discrimination was so palpable.”
Young, appointed by Ronald Reagan, ruled that the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health research grants unfairly targeted minority groups and were illegal.
Young ordered the funds be restored to the research projects Monday during a hearing in the case brought by 16 state attorneys general and other groups against the Trump administration’s executive orders targeting “discriminatory” DEI programs and “gender ideology.” His ruling covers only a small percentage of the hundreds of NIH research projects eliminated by the Trump administration.
The judge said the administration’s process was “arbitrary and capricious” and failed to follow long-held government rules and standards when it abruptly canceled grants that allegedly focused on gender identity or diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Health disparities or inequities – determining why some racial or ethnic minorities, or genders, may be more at risk of certain diseases than others – were the focus of more than 550 of the terminated grants, according to ProPublica.
One of the studies examined the maternal behavioral health conditions of Black women. Also canceled: a study that hoped to determine why women of color disproportionately die from cervical cancer.
“If you cannot identify groups that are higher risk, it seems like just really bad science. That’s sort of the basics of how you try to conquer a disease,” said Carl Latkin, professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Young berated the president’s attorneys for “bearing down on people of color because of their color. The Constitution will not permit that.”
There is a “darker aspect” to the cases, he continued, adding it’s clear “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBT community” was a driving force.
“That’s what this is,” Young told Politico. “I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.”
Politico reported Young’s passionate rebuke was “an extraordinary departure for a federal judge of any era.”
“Have we fallen so low?” the judge lamented in his closing remarks. “Have we no shame?”
The White House accused Young of showing his bias and being a relic of establishment rule.
“It is appalling that a federal judge would use court proceedings to express his political views and preferences,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “How is a judge going to deliver an impartial decision when he explicitly stated his biased opinion that the Administration’s retraction of illegal DEI funding is racist and anti-LGBTQ?”
Though racial discrimination was not mentioned in the original lawsuit, attorneys arguing against the cuts said new NIH policies prohibit “research into certain politically disfavored subjects.”
Young noted the administration’s attorneys seemed unfazed by his claims that the cuts were discriminatory.
The Justice Department contended that its efforts to cut research grants — and many other programs and agencies — were simply a reflection of the new Trump administration’s policy priorities, reflected in Trump’s executive orders and unreviewable by the courts. They say the president should have broad latitude to set priorities and pause funding for programs that no longer align.
The cuts, they said, would actually “improve research.”
“Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans,” said DOJ lawyer Thomas Potts Jr. “Many such studies ignore rather than seriously examine biological realities. … It is an improvement to eliminate these.”
The DOJ is expected to appeal Young’s ruling.
“HHS (Health and Human Services, the parent agency of the NIH) stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people,” said HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon, adding the White House is “exploring all legal options.”
