The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday partially upheld a June 2025 district court decision (PDF) that temporarily blocked the Donald J. Trump administration from canceling federal grants awarded to University of California researchers who focus on various aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental justice.
University of California researchers whose grants were terminated for their inclusion of DEI “have standing to sue,” Jonathan Kantor, a managing partner at the Law Office of Eli M. Kantor, says on LinkedIn. “They adequately alleged concrete injury.”
Last June, six UC researchers filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration after receiving grant termination notices from the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, all claiming that the canceled grants no longer meet the agencies’ priorities.
The lawsuit (PDF) was filed on behalf of two classes of researchers. One group argues that the termination of DEI-related grants discriminates against certain viewpoints, violating the First Amendment. The other says that the “arbitrary and capricious” termination letters violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which requires agencies to provide “reasoned explanations of their [termination] decisions.”
The researchers were granted a preliminary injunction (PDF) by US District Court for the Northern District of California judge Rita F. Lin, who said that both classes of researchers were likely to succeed on these claims and ordered the administration to reinstate previously terminated UC grants.
The Trump administration appealed the decision, arguing, among other things, that the APA claim fell outside the district court’s purview.
The Ninth Circuit panel ultimately agreed with the administration on this point and reversed the preliminary injunction with respect to researchers who claimed their grants were terminated without explanation, in violation of the APA. But the panel concluded that the termination of DEI grants was unlawful on free-speech grounds.
The panel said that “because the agencies’ termination of grants was aimed at the suppression of viewpoints with which the government disagrees, it likely violates the First Amendment.”
The case is still active and has been sent back to the district court for further proceedings.
