Tag: restores

  • NIH temporarily restores UC grants under court order

    NIH temporarily restores UC grants under court order

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    Dive Brief:

    • The National Institutes of Health has temporarily restored the University of California system’s research funding it abruptly revoked under President Donald Trump, officials from the U.S. Department of Justice said in court filings this week.
    • A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction last month ordering NIH, along with the U.S. departments of Defense and Transportation, to reinstate the canceled funding for the university system and its researchers while a related lawsuit proceeds. 
    • Trump administration officials said Monday the three agencies were complying but reported some administrative difficulties that would take until mid-October to resolve.

    Dive Insight:

    Researchers and faculty from the University of California’s Berkeley and San Francisco campuses filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration in June, alleging its mass termination of research grants was illegal and jeopardized U.S. advancement. At the University of California, Los Angeles alone, NIH reportedly cut some 500 research grants worth over $500 million. 

    In September, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin temporarily ordered three agencies to reinstate the grants and barred them from making further cuts en masse against the system for the duration of the court case.

    NIH has now restored the bulk of that funding to comply with the order. But the agency is running into issues verifying if the grants it canceled are held by University of California researchers who work at institutions outside of their home system, federal officials told the court on Monday.

    In total, NIH identified 61 grants that likely meet this parameter, all but nine of which have been reinstated.

    Officials are trying to verify that the researchers on the remaining nine grants are still employed by the University of California, a process challenged by potentially out-of-date agency files, court documents said.

    As of Monday, NIH anticipated completing that work by the end of the week, though the shutdown of the federal government has likely altered that timeline.

    The Defense Department also declared a successful return of funds to University of California institutions. But the agency reported administrative difficulties on behalf of its components, such as the National Security Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the branches of the military.

    Simply identifying relevant awards issued through those groups has been a challenge, officials said, “because of the number of DoD Components and the variety of grants systems involved.”

    “Reinstatement has been particularly complicated, as a fiscal matter, where funding has already been deobligated,” the court filing said. “In most cases, DoD Components have contacted UC institutions so that they can work together to modify awards and restore funding.”

    Prior to the government shutdown, the Defense Department gave an estimated completion date of Oct. 10.

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  • Judge Restores Another Batch of Frozen Grants to UCLA

    Judge Restores Another Batch of Frozen Grants to UCLA

    The court order was issued late Monday evening.

    A federal court order issued late Monday evening provides significant financial relief to the University of California, Los Angeles, restoring about $500 million in federal research grants amid an ongoing lawsuit with the Trump administration over alleged instances of antisemitism on campus.

    The preliminary injunction, first reported by CalMatters and Politico, is temporary. But for now it reinstates more than 500 grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the Department of Labor, allowing hundreds, if not thousands, of university researchers to resume their work. That’s on top of a previous order in August from the same court that unfroze about 300 grants from the National Science Foundation.

    Between the two rulings, almost all of UCLA’s federal research grants have been restored.

    The funds were first withheld in late July, less than a week after the Justice Department accused the university of tolerating discrimination against Jewish students, faculty members and staff, in violation of federal civil rights law. The Trump administration later said UCLA could resolve the situation by paying $1.2 billion and agreeing to lengthy list of policy changes.

    But university researchers pushed back, using an existing broader lawsuit and injunction to challenge the grant freeze.

    In the end, District Judge Rita F. Lin, a Biden appointee, ruled in favor of the faculty members, saying the indefinite suspensions of grants was “likely arbitrary,” “capricious” and a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

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  • Judge Restores AmeriCorps Funding in 24 States, D.C.

    Judge Restores AmeriCorps Funding in 24 States, D.C.

    A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore funding to AmeriCorps programs in 24 states and Washington, D.C., following a lawsuit that challenged the April cuts to the program, The Hill reported Thursday.

    The judge, Obama appointee Deborah Boardman, ruled that the states were likely to succeed in their argument that the agency’s funding could not legally be cut without a notice-and-comment period. The ruling did not reinstate any of the agency’s staff.

    AmeriCorps volunteers and grants support at least 100 college-access organizations across the U.S., many of which had to lay off their AmeriCorps members in the wake of the cuts.

    It’s the latest court order blocking the administration’s crusade to reduce the size of the federal government; recently, judges reversed layoffs at the Department of Education and ruled that a lawsuit challenging funding cuts at the National Institutes of Health could move forward.

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  • USDA restores funding to University of Maine System

    USDA restores funding to University of Maine System

    In a quick reversal, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has restored funding to the University of Maine System after pausing it on Monday. 

    On Wednesday evening, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, announced that USDA funding for UMS programs had resumed after she had consulted with the Trump administration. 

    “This USDA funding is critically important not only to the University of Maine, but to our farmers and loggers, as well as to the many people who work in Maine’s agriculture, aquaculture, and forestry industries,” Collins said in a statement.  

    UMS leaders learned of the funding restoration from Collins. System Chancellor Dannel Malloy and University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy said in a joint statement late Wednesday that the shutoff was an “unnecessary distraction from our essential education, research and extension activities.”

    Altogether, UMS has $63 million in active USDA grants — most of which goes to the flagship University of Maine campus in Orono, the system said. Of that, about $35 million is left to be paid out. The funding helps finance a wide array of programs, including agricultural research, the youth agricultural engagement program 4-H, and plant and tick disease testing. 

    The funding freeze came weeks after a tense public exchange between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat. Trump threatened Mills on Feb. 21 with pulling all federal funding to the state if it did not comply with his executive order barring transgender women from K-12 and college sports teams aligning with their gender identity. 

    The day after the exchange, USDA announced a compliance review of the University of Maine under Title IX, which bars sex-based discrimination at federally funded education institutions. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also announced a civil rights investigation into the state on Feb. 21, finding just four days later that its education department had violated Title IX. 

    UMS said it heard nothing from USDA between Feb. 26 and March 10, when the system learned via a forwarded email that USDA had temporarily cut off all funding. 

    UMS maintains that it is “fully compliant” with all state and federal laws as well as with updated NCAA rules. The college sports association changed its rules to adhere to Trump’s executive order the day after it was signed. 

    “At no point since USDA announced its Title IX compliance review on Feb. 22 has that Department, or any other party, alleged any violation by Maine’s public universities of Title IX or any other federal or state law,” UMS said in a release Wednesday.

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  • Statement: Trump restores crucial due process rights for America’s college students

    Statement: Trump restores crucial due process rights for America’s college students

    The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced today it agrees with a federal court ruling that appropriately found the Biden-era Title IX rules to unconstitutionally restrict student First Amendment rights.  

    Those rules, effective in August 2024, infringed on constitutionally protected speech related to sex and gender. They also rolled back crucial due process rights for those accused of sexual misconduct on campus, increasing the likelihood that colleges would arrive at unreliable conclusions during those proceedings. OCR announced it will instead enforce the 2020 rules adopted during the first Trump administration which carefully considered the rights of complainants and respondents alike, while providing robust free speech and due process protections. 

    The following can be attributed to Tyler Coward, FIRE lead counsel for government affairs:

    The return to the 2020 rules ensures that all students — whether they are the accused or the accuser — will receive fair treatment and important procedural safeguards. That includes the right of both parties to have lawyers present during hearings, the right for both attorneys to cross-examine the other party and witnesses, and the right to receive all of the evidence in the institution’s possession. Colleges are also required to adopt a speech-protective definition of sexual harassment that enables schools to punish genuine harassment instead of merely unpopular speech. 

    Restoring the Trump administration’s rules means that students can once again feel secure that their rights to due process and free speech will be respected while ensuring administrators have the tools they need to punish those who engage in sexual misconduct and harassment.

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