A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore a portion of research grants it had suspended from UCLA earlier this month, after the U.S. Department of Justice alleged civil rights violations.
In a court order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) had violated a temporary restraining order she had issued on June 23, which blocked federal research grant “terminations.” In a statement to CBS Los Angeles following Lin’s ruling, the NSF said it has “reinstated the suspended awards to the University of California – Los Angeles.”
Lin’s ruling in June was in a class-action lawsuit brought by researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley. Lin enjoined the NSF, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from “giving effect to any grant termination that results in the termination of funding.”
Lin said the NSF violated her previous ruling with its decision to suspend research funding to UCLA. She ordered that all grants suspended by the agency between July 30 and Aug. 12 be restored.
On July 31, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk wrote a letter to the university community announcing it had lost federal research funding from the NSF, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies.
Frenk said that the federal government was claiming “antisemitism and bias as the reasons” for the suspension of funds. On Aug. 6, Frenk provided an update that his office estimated about $584 million would be impacted by the funding freeze.
According to court documents, attorneys for the NSF argued that the recent funding freeze to UCLA was a “suspension” of funds rather than a “termination,” which they said is different from what Lin prohibited in her June ruling.
In response to the NSF’s argument, Lin said, “NSF’s indefinite suspensions differ from a termination in name only… NSF may have re-labeled its action a ‘suspension,’ but it is a distinction without a difference in this case.”
She said NSF has until Aug. 19 to provide a status report confirming it is complying with her ruling.
Although the University of California is not involved in the suit, a spokesperson sent a statement to CBS Los Angeles.
“While we have not had an opportunity to review the court’s order and were not party to the suit, restoration of National Science Foundation funds is critical to research the University of California performs on behalf of California and the nation,” the statement said.
CBS Los Angeles has reached out to the White House and UCLA for a comment on the matter and is waiting for a response.
