LOS ANGELES (BN24) — A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to partially restore millions in federal science grants to UCLA, rejecting the government’s attempt to freeze research funding over allegations of antisemitism on campus.
In a late-night ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin directed the National Science Foundation to reinstate suspended grants to UCLA within one week, siding with University of California researchers in a major class action lawsuit that accused the administration of “arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful” funding cuts. The order follows weeks of escalating legal battles after the Trump administration halted $584 million in federal grants to the school, including roughly $101 million in NSF-backed projects, citing claims that UCLA failed to adequately address antisemitism against Jewish and Israeli students.
Judge Lin said the suspension violated a preliminary injunction she had issued in June prohibiting such grant terminations without proper justification. She also rejected the administration’s defense that the cuts were merely “suspensions” rather than “terminations,” noting that either action had the same disruptive effect on ongoing research.
“NSF claims that it could simply turn around the day after the Preliminary Injunction issued, and halt funding on every grant that had been ordered reinstated, so long as that action was labeled as a ‘suspension’ rather than a ‘termination,’” Lin wrote. “This is not a reasonable interpretation.”
The ruling came just days after the Trump administration proposed a $1 billion settlement with UCLA to restore the funding, a move tied to its allegations that the university acted with “deliberate indifference” in fostering a hostile educational environment. The University of California system said it welcomed the court’s decision, emphasizing that NSF funds are “critical to research the University of California performs on behalf of California and the nation.”
The lawsuit, filed in June and led by UC Berkeley law professor Claudia Polsky, claims that the grant cuts were implemented through the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency without individual review or due process. Plaintiffs allege that some terminations were triggered merely because titles of approved projects contained “DEI-related” terms like “equity.”
Polsky praised Lin’s ruling, saying the judge “readily understood that the suspension actions, like the prior terminations she had enjoined, unlawfully failed to contain grant-specific rationales for halting grants mid-stream” and ignored the public waste caused by abandoning research prematurely.
The White House has not responded to requests for comment.
