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Researchers File Lawsuit Against NIH Over Grant Funding Restrictions
Just the facts
The class-action complaint filed in San Francisco federal court accuses the Trump administration of using a screening list of 235 keywords, including terms like gender, equity, and racist, to restrict scientific funding. Named plaintiffs include Ann Cohen, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh studying Alzheimer's disease risks in underrepresented groups, and Arghavan Salles, a clinical associate professor at Stanford University. The lawsuit asserts that conditioning federal grant approval on ideological criteria violates governing administrative statutes and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. According to data cited in the court filing, federal keyword filtering has impacted thousands of biomedical research grants, interrupting active clinical trials and data analysis. The plaintiffs seek a court order requiring the agency to restore canceled grants and cease keyword-based funding restrictions.
Why this is news
A coalition of scientific researchers, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the National Institutes of Health. The lawsuit alleges that federal officials are unlawfully withholding and canceling biomedical research grants based on a list of prohibited terms.
Sources
This summary is compiled strictly from the original reporting below.