Trump administration must restore hundreds of UCLA research grants, federal judge rules

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to resume hundreds of grants to suspend UCLA scientific research on Tuesday, and the administration suddenly frozen more than one-third of its $584 million funding late last month.

U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin issued a hours-long order after a San Francisco court hearing, saying the government’s funding cuts to UCLA violated her June domination to prevent the termination of scientific research grants.

Lin, of the northern California region, wrote that the National Science Foundation “has suspended grants here.” She ordered the Trump administration to submit an update by August 19 detailing whether it restored the grant, or, “explained why it was not feasible and a description of the steps taken so far.”

The case – filed independently by a group of UC professors, is the first legal test of whether the UCLA mass grant suspension will pass the court.

The Trump administration has frozen $584 million in science, medicine and other federal grants on the grounds that the university allegedly discriminated against enrollment and failed to “promote a research environment without anti-Semitism.”

UCLA freezes research funded by NSF, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy. They include research in areas such as cancer, neurobiology, and clean energy.

A spokesperson for NSF, UC and UCLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment later Tuesday.

The case was earlier than July at UCLA awarded freeze

The order issued Tuesday was only related to NSF grants, which accounted for approximately UCLA frozen orders. NIH and hundreds of other suspensions from the Department of Energy are not affected.

In cases filed by the University of California, the court challenge did not file a lawsuit. Instead, it filed a 2-month-old class action lawsuit filed by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and UC Berkeley.

The question at Tuesday’s hearing was that it was illegal to cut NSF grants, which prevented many UC researchers from termination of scientific funding across the nine campus systems, according to Lin’s June court order.

UC professors funded by the NSF, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Humanities Foundation filed a lawsuit that they face layoffs as their grants appear in federal keyword searches for the administration with President Trump’s program to expel diversity, equity and inclusion.

They also believe that by using common form letters without explanation, their funds were removed. They believe federal law requires government officials to mention reasons why funds that have been approved through competing applications have been cancelled.

Lin said she tended to agree with the researchers’ arguments as the case proceeded. She issued a preliminary ban on June 23.

What happened to the hearing on Tuesday

Lin challenged Trump administration lawyers on Tuesday to explain why UCLA’s new science payment did not violate her earlier court orders.

“Two weeks ago, the NSF went out and again cut off UCLA en Masse’s findings using form letters,” Lin said. She asked the Justice Department attorney what was a distance from the lawyers she ordered from the latest cuts before.

Government lawyers say the latest UCLA cuts are two reasons. First, the fund freeze is a “suspension” rather than a “termination”, which is the subject of Lin’s previous ruling.

“If it was a suspension, then the court’s injunction would not cover it,” said Justice Department attorney Jason Altabet.

Another Justice Department attorney, Michael Velchik, argued that the recent grants were cut so much that it could not be considered a “termination.”

“A week for the court, there is not enough time for a week to rule that a week suspension is a fact that it is terminated,” Velchik said.

In her Tuesday order, Lin disagreed.

“The NSF’s indefinite suspension is only different from the termination of the name,” she wrote.

Lin later added: “To avoid doubt, the court also clarified the grant of ‘terminated’ as the term is used in the preliminary injunction, covering the reduction of grant funds on a long-term or indefinite basis conducted by UCLA on July 30 at the NSF of UCLA.

Administration lawyers also said the Trump administration has not frozen all grants to UCLA, but has retained some “critical” and “important” grants.

They did not specify which grants or how much. The answer is to answer Lin’s question of whether the government abused the grants, a question that led her to terminate the termination in June.

Representing the UC researchers is Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Chemerinsky said the UCLA cuts amounted to “the kind of termination that the court ordered before.”

For researchers, the terms “pause” and “termination” are the same, he said.

“They can’t pay rent anymore, they can’t pay graduates anymore, and they can’t pay postdoctoral anymore,” Chemerinsky said. “There’s no difference.”

Professor Berkeley accused the administration of “grasping all personal grants and trying to force UCLA to settle.”

Velchik disagrees.

“The government has legal and real concerns about what happened at UCLA,” he said, who said the university has “severe and terrible” anti-Semitism and referred to allegations of “racial preference” at UCLA Medical School.

The Trump administration has requested more than $1 billion from the University of California to restore more than $5 billion in UCLA funding. The administration also asked the UCLA to agree to revolutionize campus changes to protest rules, gender identity, admissions-DATA sharing and other fields.

UC leaders say they are willing to negotiate, but the current term is “unacceptable.” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Trump asked for an attempt to “ranspeckle” and “ransom”, saying he wanted to sue.

The UC board of directors held an emergency meeting at UCLA on Monday and has not announced the lawsuit.