White House Admits Using Keywords to Kill Billions in California Research Grants
Federal agencies have admitted in court filings that they used keyword searches—not individual performance reviews—to identify and terminate more than a thousand University of California research grants worth nearly $2 billion, marking a significant development in a lawsuit that accuses the Trump administration of unconstitutionally targeting scientific research.
The admission came in signed stipulations filed in the case Thakur v. Trump in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, as AP News reported. Lawyers for the UC professors argue that the filings prove three constitutional violations: First Amendment viewpoint discrimination, political retaliation against researchers in states that voted against President Trump, and violation of Congress’s spending power. A hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is scheduled for October 20.
How the Keyword System Worked
According to the court filings, agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency used search terms such as “health equity,” “work force diversity,” “structural racism,” “sexual orientation,” “transportation equity,” “disadvantaged communities,” “vaccine hesitancy,” and “COVID-19” to flag grants for termination.
The agencies “did not terminate any grants based on alleged noncompliance with the terms of the grant” and instead used “general criteria, rather than grant-specific assessment of each award’s compliance, or performance,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in the filing, as CalMatters reported.
The NIH alone suspended or cancelled more than 1,000 UC grants, including nearly 700 at UCLA, covering research into vaccines, cancer, and health disparities. The Department of Transportation identified six grants worth approximately $42 million for termination because they involved “transportation equity” or “diversifying the transportation workforce.” The termination of three DOT grants led by a UC Davis professor resulted in 77 researchers abandoning 79 in-progress projects, with more than 40 graduate and undergraduate research assistants laid off or forced to find alternative funding.
Political Targeting Allegations
The plaintiffs’ legal team also highlighted that 283 Department of Energy grants were terminated from states where a majority voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, while hundreds of grants to “red” states were left untouched. This pattern, they argue, amounts to unconstitutional political retaliation against researchers based solely on the political leanings of their states.
The NIH further disclosed that it is possible that DOGE—the short-lived Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk in 2025—used artificial intelligence to target grants for termination, raising additional questions about the methodology behind the funding cuts.
Judge Has Repeatedly Sided with Researchers
The presiding judge in Thakur v. Trump, Rita F. Lin, a Biden appointee, has issued multiple preliminary injunctions forcing federal agencies to restore grants while the case proceeds. This includes the restoration of hundreds of grants at UCLA that the Trump administration sought to suspend over allegations that the university tolerated antisemitism and permitted transgender women to compete on women’s sports teams.
Lin faulted the administration for disregarding remedial steps UCLA had already taken to address antisemitism, writing that the administration’s justification for terminating the grants did not “mention the remedial steps UCLA had already taken to address the issues described.”
Separate Massachusetts Ruling Deals Blow to Administration
In a related development, a separate federal district judge in Massachusetts dealt the administration a significant blow. Judge Indira Talwani ruled on July 17 that the White House Office of Management and Budget’s termination clause—which allows grant cancellation if an award “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities”—cannot be used to terminate grants based on changed priorities, as Inside Higher Ed reported.
“Requirements prioritize ensuring that grantees are on notice, before applying, as to what the program goals and agency priorities are for any particular award,” Talwani wrote. “It would be contrary to this extensive scheme to interpret the Termination Clause to allow the termination of grants based on new priorities, including priorities not disclosed to the grantees.”
The ruling applies to 23 states, including California, that sued the administration over the grant cancellations.
Broader Implications and What’s Next
The stakes in the Thakur case are enormous. The plaintiffs’ lawyers warned that if the White House is “allowed to terminate this funding, the researchers, graduate students, and program staff that relied on the grants to pursue their lives’ work will all suffer significant damage to their reputations and careers.” They cautioned of lifesaving cures that may never be developed and a decline in America’s global standing in publicly funded research.
The Environmental Protection Agency, one of the named agencies in the suit, is in the process of settling with the UC professors’ lawyers to avoid further litigation.
Meanwhile, the White House Office of Management and Budget has proposed changing the uniform guidance for federal grants to explicitly allow termination based on priorities “as they exist at the time of the termination.” The proposal has drawn more than 490,000 public comments, mostly in opposition from higher education associations and research advocacy groups.
Amanda Fuchs Miller, president of Seventh Street Strategies and a former Biden administration education official, told Inside Higher Ed that Congress “really needs to step in and make it clear when an agency can terminate a grant midstream and when they can’t.”
If Judge Lin rules for the plaintiffs in October, the administration could appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Given the high stakes and multiple related cases, the dispute could ultimately reach the Supreme Court, potentially reshaping the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch over federally funded research.
This article was based on reporting from AP News, CalMatters, and Inside Higher Ed.