During the week of July 13, each defendant agency that terminated over a thousand research grants at the University of California (UC) submitted stipulations in a federal court filing admitting to using search terms, keywords or phrases and in some cases, artificial intelligence to “identify grants for termination review.” Some of the keywords and phrases included were “community,” “COVID-19,” “health equity,” “social science” and “justice.” The class-action lawsuit, Thakur v. Trump, was filed by six researchers in the UC system in June 2025, and litigation is still ongoing.
The researchers’ lawyers say that this admission is further proof that the federal agencies illegally terminated research grants in the UC system. The lawyers argue that some of the terminations violated the First Amendment because they were based on the administration’s disapproval of certain viewpoints. They said that this would “impose a disproportionate burden calculated to drive disfavored viewpoints from the marketplace.” The lawyers also said that, when terminating grants, the agencies used general criteria rather than individual assessments of noncompliance. In some cases, the Plaintiffs received letters stating that the grants “no longer effectuate the program goals or agency priorities” seemingly without specific reasoning.
The rest of the termination process lacked careful consideration as well. Instead of sending out specific letters, grantees were sent uniform, standardized termination letters.
Withholding funding that Congress specifically appropriated without proper justification is an overreach of executive power. The lawyers posit the question: “Does the Constitution allow Defendants to act in an ‘ultra vires’ manner by terminating grant funds appropriated by funding?”
UC Irvine has experienced harm from these terminations. UC Irvine Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering Plamen Atanassov is a named plaintiff in the case. The Department of Energy had terminated three awards supporting his research on fuel cells and energy harvesting. According to the lawyers, this caused “immediate and concrete harm to Dr. Atanassov, his students and the research enterprise built around these awards.”
Abruptly terminating research can also stop years of progress and permanently stunt crucial research. Sudden layoffs or the total loss of a project causes irreparable damage to developments in academia. A careless cancellation of crucial research is a reckless use of executive power. New University believes in stable, critical funding for UC research.
Editor’s note: Editorials should not be interpreted to reflect the opinion, thoughts or beliefs of any individual New University editor, staff member or affiliate.
