Judge orders U.S. to restore UCLA grants

A federal judge Monday ordered the Trump administration to restore $500 million in UCLA medical research grants, halting for now a nearly two-month funding crisis that UC leaders said threatened the future of the nation’s premier public university system.

- BY JAWEED KALEEM

JULIANA YAMADA Los Angeles Times

THE GRANT FREEZES had led to talk of possible closures of labs conducting cancer and other research.

The opinion by U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District of California added UCLA's major National Institutes of Health grants to an ongoing class-action lawsuit that had already led to the reversal of tens of millions of dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment for the Humanities and other federal agencies to UC campuses.

Lin’s order provides the biggest relief to UCLA but affects federal funding awarded to all 10 University of California campuses. Lin ruled that the NIH grants were suspended by form letters that were unspecific to the research, a likely violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates executive branch rule-making.

In addition to the medical grant freezes — which had led to talk of possible UCLA layoffs or closures of labs conducting cancer and stroke research, among other diseases — Lin said the government would have to restore a smaller amount of Department of Defense and Department of Transportation grants to UC schools.

Lin elaborated on her thinking in a hearing Thursday, saying that the Trump administration had undertaken a “fundamental sin” in its “un-reasoned mass terminations” of the grants using “letters that don’t go through the required factors that the agency is supposed to consider.”

The preliminary injunction would be in place as the case proceeds through the courts. But in broadening the case, Lin agreed with plaintiffs that there would be irreparable harm if the suspensions were not immediately reversed.