William Young, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, has had a storied career. Appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1985, the 84-year-old judge has heard many hundreds of cases involving everything from airline mergers to racketeering charges against the criminal gang MS-13. Perhaps most famously, he sentenced the “shoe bomber” to three life terms in prison for attempting to blow up a plane in 2001.
On 16 June, Young will take on a new question: whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has, following official or unofficial directives from President Donald Trump’s administration, violated the law by abruptly canceling hundreds of grants studying topics such as transgender health, vaccine skepticism, and health equity—an accusation that Young has called “breathtaking.” His decision, which could come as early as Monday at the morning hearing, could force NIH to restore money to many of the affected scientists, although the decision could be overturned on appeal.
Young has partially consolidated two separate lawsuits, both filed in early April, that allege NIH’s grant terminations did not follow proper procedure and were arbitrary and capricious, meaning the agency’s decisions were not well reasoned. The plaintiffs in one case, American Public Health Association v. National Institutes of Health, include researchers who belong to APHA, as well as a union representing scientific workers and four individual researchers and one institution whose NIH grants were terminated. The other case, Massachusetts v. Kennedy, was brought by 16 attorneys general from states whose research institutions lost funding. Lawyers for the plaintiffs and those representing NIH will present their cases at Monday’s 3-hour hearing.
More: https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-s-cuts-more-1700-nih-grants-get-court-hearing
