Sixteen states have sued the Trump administration to restore research funding in biomedicine and public health that has been suspended or blocked by officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The New York Times reports that “California, Massachusetts and 14 other states sued the Trump administration on Friday for withholding grant funding from public health and medical research institutions, cuts that have forced universities to curtail research and to delay the hiring of new staff.”

“The National Institutes of Health is the world’s leading public funder of biomedical research, supporting studies on aging, substance abuse and other major issues. More than 80 percent of the agency’s $47 billion budget goes to outside researchers — grant funding that in recent weeks has been eliminated, paused or delayed by the Trump administration in a ‘concerted, and multi-pronged effort to disrupt NIH’s grants,’ according to the lawsuit.”

The New York Times emphasizes that “Cuts and delays to N.I.H. funding have crippled research teams in universities across the country and halted studies midstream, setting back work on diseases like cancer and diabetes and plunging American medical research into crisis. The attorneys general are asking the courts to restore pulled grant funding and to allow pending grant applications to be evaluated and approved fairly.”

The state attorneys general bringing this lawsuit argue that the Trump administration’s actions are illegal.

“‘In their unlawful withholding and terminating of medical and public health research grants, the Trump Administration is upending not only the critical work being done today, but the promise of progress for future generations,’ Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, said in a statement,” according to The New York Times.

Attorney General Laetitia James (State of New York) indicates that the other states joining the lawsuit are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai’i, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

I wonder why the attorney general of the State of Illinois has apparently not yet joined this lawsuit?

In a separate lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the Trump administration over the its ideological blocking of federal research grants in biomedical and public health research.

NBC News reports that “The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that the National Institutes of Health has conducted an ‘ongoing ideological purge of critical research projects’ that violates federal law and is unconstitutional.”

“The lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts district court on behalf of four researchers and three unions with members who rely on NIH funding, says that the federal science agency ‘abruptly cancelled’ hundreds of research projects ‘without scientifically-valid explanation or cause.'”

According to NBC News, “The lawsuit says NIH has justified its cancellations with ‘ideological purity directives’ about research related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), vaccine hesitancy and gender identity, among other topics.”

“‘The new arbitrary regime is not codified in any law or policy,’ the lawsuit says, adding that NIH has ‘failed to develop any guidelines, definitions or explanations’ that explain ‘the parameters of the agency’s prohibitions against research with some connection to DEI, gender, and other topics that fail Defendants’ ideological conformity screen.'”

“The new lawsuit lists the NIH; its director, Jay Bhattacharya; the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services; and its director, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as defendants. Both federal agencies said they would not comment on pending litigation.”

Karlamangla, Soumya and Benjamin Mueller. “16 States Sue to Restore N.I.H. Funding.” The New York Times (4 April 2025).

Bush, Evan. “ACLU Sues National Institutes of Health for ‘Ideological Purge’ of Research Projects.” NBC News (2 April 2025).

Attorney General Laetitia James (State of New York) has issued a statement on the attorneys general lawsuit.