Exclusive: NIH still screens grants in process a judge ruled illegal

Directives by the Trump administration are still being applied to grant applications despite court order

Grant reviewers at the US National Institutes of Health are still following screening guidelines that a judge declared illegal.Credit: Getty

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has not yet rescinded directives that led to the cancellation of more than 2,400 research projects it funded, NIH staff members say, even though a US judge last week called the directives “bereft of reasoning” and ruled them illegal.

NIH employees, who had been instructed to screen thousands of grants on a rolling weekly basis to assess their compliance with “agency priorities”, have continued to do so after the court ruling on 16 June. This has left many confused and worried about the legality of their actions, according to eight NIH employees who spoke to Nature and were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak with the press. The directives were issued by the administration of US President Donald Trump, a Republican, after he took office in January.

Samuel Bagenstos, who until December 2024 was the top lawyer for NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told Nature that his office was responsible for sending out guidance to staff on how to comply with court orders — often within hours or by the next business day at latest.

“This is not the way things normally go,” says Bagenstos, who worked at HHS under former president Joe Biden, a Democrat. “You would not want to leave the people responsible for complying [with court orders] hanging out in the wind, trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do.”

The NIH, HHS and White House did not immediately respond to Nature’s queries about their plans to rescind these directives, the allegations by NIH staff members that the administration is disregarding a court order or NIH employees’ concerns about the continued screening of grants.

The NIH has made some progress in complying with the court’s orders. It has begun to reinstate about 900 projects covered by the judge’s ruling, and it has directed staff to cease any further terminations, according to emails that Nature obtained. A top NIH official wrote in one of the emails that these actions are “part of the first phase of our compliance with the court’s judgment” and “additional information is forthcoming”.

Far-reaching cancellations

Since Trump took office earlier this year, the NIH has cancelled funding for thousands of projects, including research on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), people from sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ+) and COVID-19.

Representatives of the HHS and billionaire Elon Musk’s US Department of Government Efficiency issued directives to NIH staff members to slash grants on disfavoured topics, and they provided boilerplate language for the employees to use in termination letters to scientists, Nature previously reported.

Lawsuits filed in early April challenged these cuts, arguing that they were unlawful because the NIH did not follow proper procedures and did not give adequate reasoning for their cancellation. Last week, Judge William Young of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston ruled that the directives were “arbitrary and capricious” and thus illegal and void. He also delivered a blistering rebuke after his ruling, excoriating the Trump administration for targeting research on the health of LGBTQ+ individuals and people from minority ethnic groups.