This story was originally published on Judd Legum’s Substack, Popular Information, to which you can subscribe here.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is still blocking most ongoing scientific funding over concerns about “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI), according to NIH sources and internal NIH correspondence. The freeze has continued even after top NIH officials acknowledged that continuing to block the funding would violate a federal court order.
Last month, the Trump administration issued a memo, through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), requiring federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance,” including “grants and loans.” The purpose of the spending freeze was to ensure compliance with President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting funding for “DEI,” “woke gender ideology,” and other topics.
The directive was quickly challenged in federal court by a coalition of 22 states. The federal court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on January 31, which “restrained and prohibited” the Trump administration “from reissuing, adopting, implementing, or otherwise giving effect to the OMB Directive under any other name or title.”
Grant funding by the National Cancer Institute from February 1 through February 22 is one-sixth of what it was for the same period last year.
A February 12 memo by two top NIH officials, which was not released publicly but was obtained by Popular Information, acknowledged that the TRO prohibited the agency from freezing funding to implement Trump’s executive order on DEI. “We recognize that NIH programs fall under [the] recently issued Temporary Restraining Order,” the officials wrote and, therefore, “grant management staff” can “proceed with issuing awards for all…grants.”
That has not happened.
Another memo issued by the same officials on February 13, obtained by Popular Information through an NIH source, provided “supplemental guidance.” The February 13 memo imposed “hard restrictions on awards… where the program promotes or takes part in [DEI] initiatives.”
The restrictions apply to “new and continuation awards made on or after February 14, 2025.” The freeze will “remain in place until the agency conducts a review” to determine whether “funding of the activities/programs are…consistent with current policy priorities.”
According to another NIH source, the agency conducted a keyword search to identify “DEI” grants. All funding for these grants has been frozen. Internally, NIH staff believes these grants may be canceled entirely, the source told Popular Information. Further, in some of the NIH’s institutes and centers, according to internal NIH correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, all grants have been frozen pending the creation of anti-DEI language that can be added to applications. Thus far, the language has not been provided to grant management staff.
The freeze has impacted the funding of most continuing grants at NIH. These grants fund ongoing research, including many studies involving human subjects in clinical trials. Since Congress provides funding annually, these grants must be extended each year, but it is normally a routine administrative process.
Freezing this funding to implement the administration’s DEI policies does not comply with the federal court’s TRO. It also jeopardizes critical research on cancer treatments, heart disease prevention, stroke intervention, and other potentially life-saving topics.
David Moorman, a brain researcher and professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, has not had his annual grant renewed. It is now three weeks late. “At some point, our money will run out and if it doesn’t get renewed, we will have to start firing people in my lab and this research will die,” Moorman told the Boston Globe.
From February 1 to February 12 there was a total freeze on the issuing of continuing grants, according to publicly reported data. After the issuance of the February 12 memo, some continuing grants have been funded. Between February 13, 2025, and February 22, 2025, there were 335 continuing grants issued with a total value of $200,235,780. However, the data shows that most continuing grants are still being blocked. Over the same nine-day period in 2024, there were 823 grants issued with a total value of $484,709,831.
Funding for continuing grants administered by the National Cancer Institute has dropped from $162 million between February 1, 2024, and February 22, 2024, to $27 million over the same period this year.
