BOSTON, February 10 – On Monday, a US judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration’s sharp cuts to federal grant funding for universities, medical centers, and other research institutions.
U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley’s decision was a victory for Democratic attorneys general from 22 states who sued in federal court in Boston on Monday to challenge cuts made by the National Institutes of Health to the reimbursement rate for some research institutions’ costs.
The cuts were scheduled to take effect on Monday.
Kelley, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, has scheduled a hearing for further arguments on February 21.
The lawsuit, filed by the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Illinois, and Michigan, focused on the reimbursement rate for research institution costs that were not directly related to project goals, such as laboratory space, faculty, equipment, or infrastructure.
The states accused the NIH of overstepping its authority and violating federal law.
“The president does not have the authority to unilaterally defy Congress and defund life-saving medical and scientific research,” New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who also joined the lawsuit, said in a video posted to X following the decision.
On Friday, the Trump administration announced that it would cap the rate at which it would reimburse indirect costs at 15%, down from an average of around 27% to 28%. The NIH policy is one of Trump’s many actions since assuming the presidency on January 20 aimed at reducing certain federal spending and dismantling parts of the US government.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.
The National Institutes of Health previously stated that it will spend more than $35 billion in the fiscal year 2023 on grants awarded to researchers at over 2,500 institutions.
According to the NIH, approximately $9 billion of that money was used to cover overhead and indirect costs at institutions.
In a social media post on Friday, the NIH stated that the change would save the federal government $4 billion per year. It claimed that Harvard University, Yale University, and Johns Hopkins University all had multibillion-dollar endowments and charged more than 60%.
The state attorneys general stated that if allowed to stand, the NIH’s action would result in layoffs, research disruptions, and laboratory closures.
The lawsuit claimed that the cuts violate language attached to funding legislation passed by Congress since 2018, which prohibits the NIH from making such a rate change without proper authorization. That language was adopted following Trump’s first administration’s proposal in 2017 to cap the indirect tax rate at 10%.
The lawsuit also accused the NIH of exceeding its authority by applying the cuts retroactively to existing federal grants and implementing the policy without following mandatory rulemaking procedures.
Harvard said in a statement on Monday that the cuts would “slash funding and reduce research activity at Harvard and nearly every research university in our nation.” Yale did not return a request for comment. Johns Hopkins had no immediate comments.
On Monday, a group of medical trade associations, including the Association of American Medical Colleges, filed a separate lawsuit to block the NIH cuts.
