In a recent legal development, US District Judge Rita Lin of the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction to reinstate over $500 million in federal research funding for the University of California (UC) system, including grants for researchers at UCLA. The court found the Trump administration’s broad termination of these grants likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act and raised First Amendment issues. The ruling called into question the government’s method of using form letters with minimal explanation to suspend the funds. More details on the case can be found here.
Previously, the Trump administration claimed the freezes were due to civil rights violations. The Department of Justice alleged antisemitism at UCLA and highlighted failures to protect Jewish students, citing these as reasons for the grant suspensions. This funding decision was part of a broader strategy that aimed to hold UC accountable under Title VI regulations.
This recent decision expands a previous injunction issued in June 2025. That injunction prevented three federal agencies from cutting off funding to projects related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, using form letters. The Ninth Circuit had earlier denied a government request for a stay of that order, indicating a lack of substantial grounds for success based on jurisdictional arguments.
With this new order, the relief has been extended to additional federal agencies, which allegedly engaged in similar abrupt grant terminations. The court refuted the government’s reliance on the Supreme Court’s emergency stay in NIH v. American Public Health Ass’n to reroute these disputes to the Court of Federal Claims, emphasizing that First Amendment claims extend beyond the CFC’s jurisdiction.