ACE has joined an
amicus brief in a case led by AAMC and AAU filed with the First Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing to uphold a lower court's decision in two companion cases directing the executive branch to reinstate billions of dollars in research grants canceled by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) after President Trump took office in January.
The amicus brief notes that the NIH is “the world’s preeminent funder of scientific research,” with over 60,000 research grants supporting more than 300,000 research personnel at over 2,500 institutions.
The two lawsuits (APHA v. NIH and Massachusetts v. Kennedy) were filed in April in response to the NIH’s abrupt termination of thousands of grants that allegedly fail to align with policy priorities of the new administration, such as those that support research in vaccine hesitancy and LGBTQ+ health. The amicus brief says this “was not just unusual—it was unheard of,” and underscores that it is at odds with the “symbiotic relationship between the government and the research community, forged over decades of mutual reliance in pursuit of innovation and scientific progress.”
"Grant terminations en masse, for reasons wholly unconnected to science, threaten to destabilize the entire system and, with it, the future health of the nation," the brief stresses. "If federal research grants can be cancelled midstream based on fluctuating political views or policy preferences, that will undermine the government’s longstanding collaborative relationship with academic institutions to advance scientific progress and improve health."
This is the latest submission by ACE and the other amici in these companion cases pushing back against these NIH grant cancellations. Two earlier amicus briefs were submitted,
one to the federal district court this April supporting the plaintiffs’ requested relief, which the district court granted, and
another to the Supreme Court in August opposing a Trump administration request that enforcement of the district court’s orders be stayed pending the administration’s appeal to the First Circuit.
ACE, along with four other associations, also
sent a letter July 29 to NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya asking him to reinstate all the canceled NIH grants.