Biden Judge Orders Trump Admin to Restore Some UCLA Research Funding
Another federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden has lashed out at the Trump administration with a head-scratching ruling.
In a 12-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin of the Northern District of California found that the National Science Foundation (NSF) violated a preliminary injunction by failing to reinstate research grants previously awarded to UCLA.
It remains unclear how much of the halted funding will be reinstated under the order. In her decision, Lin noted that UCLA research projects had lost more than $324 million in grant funding this year.
The case originated from a June lawsuit filed on behalf of UCLA researchers, who argued the NSF unlawfully terminated the grants by overstepping Congress’s spending authority. On June 23, Lin issued a preliminary injunction directing the NSF to restore the awards.
On July 30, the federal agency sent out letters in “another round of en masse, form letter funding cuts” to UCLA researchers, saying the grants were suspended because they “no longer effectuate program goals or agency priorities,” according to the ruling.
NSF followed up with another letter on Aug. 1, noting further that the suspension was in response to “alleged racism, antisemitism, and policies around transgender athletes at UCLA,” according to Lin’s order.
The NSF contended that the injunction did not apply because the grants were suspended rather than terminated. However, Lin ruled Tuesday that the distinction was irrelevant, as the suspensions had no defined end date and effectively functioned the same as cancellations.
“In other words, researchers have no guarantee that funding will ever be restored and no way to take action to increase the likelihood of restoration,” the Biden appointee wrote.
Lin wrote that NSF’s decision to suspend the grants would effectively shut down federally funded research at UCLA, resulting in job losses for staff and graduate students and preventing the publication of research findings.
“NSF claims that it could simply turn around the day after the preliminary injunction issued, and halt funding on every grant that had been ordered reinstated, so long as that action was labeled as a ‘suspension’ rather than a ‘termination’. This is not a reasonable interpretation of the scope of the preliminary injunction,” said the judge in her ruling.
Lin ordered the government and attorneys for UCLA researchers to file an update by Aug. 19, confirming that every step to comply with the preliminary injunction “have been completed by NSF or, in the event that has not occurred, an explanation of why it was not feasible and description of the steps that have been taken thus far.”
President Donald Trump announced last week that he ordered the firing of the Biden-appointed official responsible for compiling the country’s monthly jobs reports, accusing her of inflating job growth under the last administration to help Vice President Kamala Harris and downplaying gains during his current term.
“I was just informed that our country’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by a Biden appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of victory,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“This is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the Jobs Growth in March 2024 by approximately 818,000 and, then again, right before the 2024 Presidential Election, in August and September, by 112,000. These were Records — No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers.”
“I have directed my team to fire this Biden political appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump added.
“McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative,” he wrote.
