US judge grills government lawyer on DEI in suit against massive health cuts
The lawsuit, filed in April by a group led by the American Public Health Association, argues that the
The suit's plaintiffs, represented in part by the ACLU of Massachusetts, also allege that the NIH's use of 'vague and undefined criteria' to decide on the cuts violated the Fifth Amendment's due-process protections.
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The cuts in March abruptly terminated tens of millions of dollars in grants in New England and across the country and heavily targeted the medical research infrastructure in Greater Boston. The decision also has endangered long-running research into disease prevention and health disparities among long-underserved populations.
Dr. Brittany Charlton, another plaintiff and associate professor at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, has said she lost several grants for the research center she founded to improve the health of LGBTQ people.
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Young took the request for dismissal under advisement, as well as a request for a preliminary injunction to block the NIH's cancellation of the grants.
But before Young made those procedural decisions, scheduling further arguments for June, he pressed Khetarpal for more clarity about the government's approach to DEI initiatives, which the Trump administration is working to scrub from American education, government, social services, and the workplace.
'Does that mean our policy is homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion? I mean, are you going to stand there and tell me, that now is the policy of the National Institutes of Health?' Young asked.
'Your honor,' Khetarpal replied, 'I am not making that assertion.'
'It would be a breathtaking assertion,' Young said.
The cancellations targeted projects classified as 'DEI research programs, gender identity, vaccine hesitancy, climate change,' and other topics proscribed by the Trump administration, according to the lawsuit.
In addition to revoking the grants, the NIH decision would imperil more than $1.3 billion already invested in research that now is in danger of being terminated.
At one point Thursday, Young turned to the plaintiffs' attorneys to ask how they believed the government has defined DEI.
'Someone in this administration says DEI, there's apparently something wrong with that. As neutrally as you can, what does that mean?' Young asked.
Kenneth Parreno, an attorney for Protect Democracy, told the judge that the plaintiffs he represents have not been given a working definition, and that the cuts have been 'arbitrary and capricious.'
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'It's the defendant's burden to show what that definition was when the decision was made,' Parreno said.
Khetarpal, the federal attorney, said that decisions to cancel some grants, such as funding for COVID-related research, had been made because the work no longer aligned with the government's 'ongoing priorities.'
Young ordered the government to produce documents by June 2 demonstrating the reasoning behind each of the NIH's new policy directives. He also called for a conference on consolidating this lawsuit with a related one filed against the NIH in April by 16 state attorneys general, including Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell.
The attorneys general argue that the cancellations were unlawful and 'seek relief for the unreasonable and intentional delays currently plaguing the grant-application process.'
Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at
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