One of the latest rebukes from a federal judge against President Donald Trump’s administration came Monday in a case over cuts to the National Institutes of Health. A judge with four decades of experience reportedly deemed certain cuts to NIH grants “illegal” and “void” while forcefully accusing officials of discrimination.
That judge is Ronald Reagan appointee William Young in Massachusetts. He reportedly said that he had never seen a case where discrimination by the government was so “palpable.”
His strong words came in legal challenges to the administration’s bid to cut funding for research related to racial minorities and LGBTQ people. “I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out,” the judge said of the discrimination he observed. He said he’d issue a written ruling explaining his decision.
Young is not the first Republican appointee with decades on the bench to call out the administration’s illegal behavior in all manner of subjects, including birthright citizenship, gender-affirming care and the president’s retaliation against law firms.
As with many cases, the question here will be how the judge’s firm stance holds on any appeal from the administration. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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