Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 to screen for projects that ran afoul of the Trump administration鈥檚 priorities.
It鈥檚 an admission that lawyers for the research professors say that the agencies illegally cancelled nearly $2 billion in grants. And that鈥檚 a major development in a lawsuit filed by UC researchers against the Trump administration to permanently get their grants back. The researchers鈥� legal team is now asking the judge in the case to skip a trial and formally declare that the White House repeatedly violated the constitution, including the First Amendment. A court hearing on whether that鈥檒l happen is scheduled for Oct. 20.
The federal agencies made the admission about the keywords in signed stipulations filed in federal court last week in a case called Thakur v. Trump that鈥檚 been ongoing .
The stipulations in the court filing show the agencies 鈥渄id not terminate any grants based on alleged noncompliance with the terms of the grant鈥� and instead used 鈥済eneral criteria, rather than grant-specific assessment of each award鈥檚 compliance, or performance,鈥� the lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote. Lawyers for the UC professors now contend that the admission proves three wide-ranging constitutional violations:
CalMatters emailed the U.S. Department of Justice, which acts as the legal defense for the federal agencies, on July 16 to ask whether it agrees that the federal grant-making agency stipulations mean the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of researchers. A spokesperson for the Justice Department didn鈥檛 respond by publication time.
History of lawsuit
The judge in this case, Rita F. Lin, has repeatedly sided with the UC professors and issued several preliminary injunctions forcing the federal agencies to restore the grants while she reviews the full merits of the case. This includes the restoration of hundreds of grants at UCLA that the Trump administration sought to suspend that the university tolerated antisemitism and permitted transgender women to compete on women鈥檚 sports teams.
Those allegations of a demand from the White House for UCLA to pay $1.2 billion or experience an additional cascade of research freezes. However, months before Trump sought that settlement UCLA took steps to address antisemitism on campus, including commissioning a task force to recommend ways to create a more welcoming environment for Jewish students.
Lin, a Biden appointee, faulted the administration for disregarding those efforts by UCLA in a preliminary injunction for a different but related lawsuit. The Trump administration鈥檚 justification for terminating the grants did not 鈥渕ention the remedial steps UCLA had already taken to address the issues described,鈥� Lin wrote.
Lawyers for professors in the Thakur case now want Lin to make a final ruling ordering the grants to be restored, rather than a preliminary one. Even if that were to happen, the federal agencies could decide to appeal Lin鈥檚 ruling to a higher court. The stakes 鈥渁re huge,鈥� lawyers for the professors in the Thakur case wrote. If the White House is 鈥渁llowed to terminate this funding, the researchers, graduate students, and program staff that relied on the grants to pursue their lives鈥� work will all suffer significant damage to their reputations and careers.鈥�
The lawyers warn of lifesaving cures that will never be developed, new understandings of diseases that will go unexplored, and the decline in the country鈥檚 global standing as an international juggernaut in publicly funded research.
Using keywords to target disfavored grants
The agencies admitted to using keywords in various ways, according to a CalMatters review of the new court filings.
The Department of Transportation six grants for projects worth about $42 million to terminate because they sought 鈥渢ransportation equity,鈥� prioritized 鈥渄isadvantaged communities,鈥� or focused on 鈥渄iversifying the transportation workforce鈥� and 鈥渆quity.鈥�
The termination of three of those grants led by a UC Davis professor resulted in 77 researchers abandoning 79 in-progress projects. Lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote that the project leaders were also forced to lay off or scramble to replace funding for more than 40 graduate and undergraduate research assistants.
The National Institutes of Health admitted to using an internal search tool to flag UC grants that mentioned 鈥渉ealth equity,鈥� 鈥渨ork force diversity,鈥� 鈥渟tructural racism,鈥� and 鈥渟exual orientation.鈥� The NIH alone suspended or cancelled more than 1,000 UC grants, including nearly 700 at UCLA, related to vaccines, cancer research and disparities in health outcomes. That figure is newly disclosed in a court filing 鈥� last year, UCLA indicated that closer to 500 NIH grants were terminated. The health research agency also declared that it鈥檚 possible that DOGE, the federal office that billionaire Elon Musk led in 2025, used AI to target grants for termination. Lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote to the judge that these admissions show the agencies 鈥渋dentified the viewpoints they wanted to suppress, searched the grants they funded for those that expressed those viewpoints, and terminated those grants on that basis.鈥� That violates the researchers鈥� First Amendment rights, the lawyers wrote. The Environmental Protection Agency, one of the named agencies in the suit, is with lawyers for the UC professors to avoid further litigation.
A separate federal district judge in Massachusetts last week in its ability to terminate grants and withhold federal funding. The White House relied on a legal phrase in many of its funding cancellations 鈥� 鈥渘o longer effectuates . . . agency priorities.鈥� California and 22 other states sued, arguing that there鈥檚 no law or right for the federal government to cancel funding based on new program goals and White House desires after the grants were already awarded. The judge agreed.
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