AG Brown co-leads multistate lawsuit against Trump administration for illegal funding cuts and delays to medical and public health research

OLYMPIA — Attorney General Nick Brown co-led today a multistate lawsuit filed against the Trump Administration for its unlawful attempt to disrupt grant funding issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is the second lawsuit filed by state attorneys general against NIH for cancelled funding.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts by attorneys general from 16 states, challenges the administration’s unreasonable and intentional delays in reviewing NIH grant applications, as well as its termination of hundreds of grants issued already. The lawsuit asserts that NIH recently terminated large swaths of grants for projects that are currently underway based on the federal government disfavoring them — like projects the Trump administration deems as related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives or fears about vaccines.

As a result of the administration’s delays and terminations, the states argue their public research institutions have experienced significant harm. For instance:

• The University of Washington receives more federal research dollars than any other public university in the nation. In fiscal year 2024, the university received more than 1,220 NIH grants, totaling over $648 million.
• The university has had millions of dollars in grants terminated, which supported innovative work in trauma research for victims of sexual assault, prevention of chlamydia infections, and the impact of air pollution on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, among other topics.
• The NIH’s delays have impacted even more projects across the university, including cancer research and Alzheimer’s research.
• The funding disruptions have forced the university to furlough and potentially lay off research staff and faculty and cut admissions to graduate programs.

“The Trump administration’s illegal withholding of funding stops life-saving advances in medical, agricultural, and public health research,” Brown said. “The harm is not only to the advances in science, but also to the jobs of researchers doing this vital work. We are asking the court to allow funds that have already been allocated to flow to Washington’s centers of research.”

The attorneys general ask a federal judge to compel the administration to promptly review and issue decisions on delayed grant applications. Currently, the states bringing the lawsuit are awaiting decisions on billions of dollars in requested research funding. 

Joining Attorney General Brown in filing today’s lawsuit, which he co-led with the attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, and Maryland, were the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

The lawsuit can be found here.

In February, Brown joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general in filing a separate lawsuit against the Trump administration for its attempts to unilaterally cut “indirect cost” reimbursements for NIH grants at nearly every research institution in the country. On March 5, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that prevented the administration from cutting the funding as the case proceeds.

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