US federal judge blocks Trump administration’s grant suspensions, orders restoration of $500 million to UCLA researchers News
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US federal judge blocks Trump administration’s grant suspensions, orders restoration of $500 million to UCLA researchers

US District Judge Rita Lin of the Northern District of California on Monday granted a preliminary injunction and provisional class certification order requiring the Trump administration to restore more than $500 million in federal research funding to individual researchers at the University of California (UC) system schools. The court found the government’s “en masse” terminations, issued by form letters with little or no explanation, likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act and implicated First Amendment concerns.

In the months before the ruling, the administration said it froze UC research grants over civil rights concerns. The Justice Department announced it had found Title VI violations tied to antisemitism at UCLA and warned of “severe accountability” in a findings letter detailing alleged failures to protect Jewish students.

The ruling expands a June 2025 injunction that blocked three federal agencies from terminating research grants en masse through form letters and from cutting off funding to projects involving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The government appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which in August denied a stay of that earlier order in a 26-page opinion, concluding the government had not shown a likelihood of success on its jurisdictional or merits arguments at this stage.

The Monday order extends similar relief to three additional agencies after newly added named plaintiffs alleged summary terminations by those agencies. The court rejected the government’s contention that the Supreme Court’s emergency stay in NIH v. American Public Health Ass’n forced all such disputes into the Court of Federal Claims (CFC), distinguishing claims brought by non-party individual researchers and emphasizing that First Amendment claims are beyond the CFC’s jurisdiction.

THIS DAY @ LAW

First impeachment trial began in US Senate

On December 17, 1798, the US Senate began its first impeachment trial. Senator William Blount of Tennessee, a land speculator, was accused of plotting with England to wrest control of Florida from Spain. The Senate ultimately dismissed the charges for lack of jurisdiction—and, perhaps incidentally, lack of Blount, who had gone to Tennessee and had refused to return to the Senate for trial. Read more on the trial of William Blount.

Simon Bolivar dies

On December 17, 1830, South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar died in Colombia. During his lifetime, Bolivar led successful revolutions against Spanish colonial rule throughout South America. His efforts led to the independence of the modern-day nations of Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador and Bolivia, a nation named in his honor.