A settlement agreement requires the National Institutes of Health to reconsider previously canceled grants tied to diversity, equity, inclusion, and gender-related research without applying Trump-era funding restrictions.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The National Institutes of Health will reconsider a large portion of diversity, equity, and inclusion–related research grants that were frozen or terminated under the Trump administration, potentially reopening hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that had been revoked last year, according to a report by Judicial Watch.
The grants under review include projects connected to DEI initiatives, LGBTQ+ and transgender research, and gender identity studies—areas the administration previously determined did not align with federal research priorities. Last spring, the NIH halted or denied thousands of such grants after an internal review identified them as DEI-focused or related to gender ideology, removing them from the agency’s annual pool of roughly 50,000 awards distributed to more than 300,000 researchers at over 2,500 universities and medical schools nationwide.
The NIH, which directs the majority of its $48 billion annual budget toward biomedical research, revoked grants worth billions of dollars that had been approved during the Biden administration. Many of the canceled awards funded studies on transgender health, LGBTQ+ populations, vaccine hesitancy, and race-based public health initiatives.
The funding cuts quickly triggered a wave of legal challenges. Researchers, labor unions, civil rights organizations, and a coalition of Democratic-led states filed lawsuits arguing that the administration unlawfully delayed or denied grant reviews. One multistate lawsuit alleged that $783 million in frozen DEI grants affected projects in Massachusetts, California, Maryland, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
That case claimed the administration violated both the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to process grant applications in a timely and lawful manner. A separate lawsuit filed by a left-wing civil rights group involved researchers whose grants were terminated, including studies on sexual violence in minority communities, mental and physical health among Black men, obstetrical outcomes for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer women, and the mental health effects of laws impacting LGBTQ+ populations.
Lower courts in Massachusetts initially sided with the states, but the U.S. Supreme Court later intervened. In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled that the trial judge lacked authority to compel the federal government to disburse the disputed funds. The decision overturned earlier rulings and allowed the Trump administration to proceed with canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in NIH grants tied to DEI and gender identity research.
Despite that ruling, the administration has now agreed to revisit many of the canceled grants as part of a recently finalized legal settlement. Under a settlement agreement signed by the Department of Justice and the attorneys general who brought the multistate lawsuit, the NIH committed to reconsidering grant applications totaling $783 million without applying the disputed DEI-related directives.
Filed in federal court in Massachusetts on Dec. 29, the agreement requires NIH officials to complete their review of the affected applications “in the ordinary course of NIH’s scientific review process” and to do so without factoring in whether the projects relate to DEI, transgender issues, gender identity, or other previously disfavored topics. The agency also agreed to evaluate each application individually and “in good faith.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell described the agreement as a victory against what she called unlawful directives that targeted research based on ideological considerations.
The decision to reopen the review process comes despite the Supreme Court ruling that strengthened the federal government’s authority to withhold taxpayer funding for research programs it deems inconsistent with policy priorities. The move has raised questions about why grants previously defended as wasteful or ideologically driven are now being reconsidered, even as the administration continues to maintain broader restrictions on DEI and gender identity–based federal funding.
Under the settlement, the NIH is not required to approve the grants, but it must reconsider them without applying the earlier prohibitions, leaving open the possibility that some or all of the funding could ultimately be reinstated.
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