The Lawsuit
On June 4, 2025, a group of University of California faculty and researchers filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the Trump Administration on behalf of all UC researchers whose previously approved federal grants were terminated pursuant to Executive Orders or other directives of President Trump. The case, Thakur v. Trump, No. 3:25-cv-04737-RFL, is before Judge Rita F. Lin and challenges the mass termination of roughly two billion dollars in federal research funding across seven agencies—the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, and the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy.
The lawsuit alleges that federal agencies, acting at the President’s direction, used keyword searches and AI tools to identify and cancel grants expressing viewpoints disfavored by the Administration—including research related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, environmental justice, and gender—in violation of the First Amendment. The Department of Energy separately terminated 283 grants located exclusively in states that voted for Kamala Harris, while leaving untouched 340 grants in states that voted for President Trump. These terminations were based solely on the political identity of each grant recipient’s state and therefore violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The case also alleges that the terminations violated the constitutional separation of powers because agencies withheld funds that Congress had specifically appropriated for grantmaking.
Preliminary Injunctions and Provisional Class Certification
In June and September 2025, the district court provisionally certified multiple classes and entered preliminary injunctions ordering the government to reinstate the terminated grants, finding that the Administration likely violated the First Amendment by targeting grants based on their perceived viewpoints. The district court also certified a Form Termination Class encompassing researchers whose grants were terminated by means of a standardized form letter that provided no grant-specific rationale, and found that these form terminations violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Ninth Circuit reversed the latter portion of the ruling, holding that plaintiff researchers’ APA claims must be brought in the Court of Federal Claims rather than federal district court. However, the Court affirmed the district court’s finding of First Amendment violation.
In January 2026, the district court denied a separate preliminary injunction as to the Department of Energy’s grant terminations, finding that further factual development was necessary before such relief could be granted. The missing information Judge deemed essential has since been supplied in this DOE stipulation.
Government’s Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court
On August 18, 2026, the government filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court (No. 26-210), seeking review of the Ninth Circuit’s opinion affirming the preliminary injunction on the First Amendment claims. In connection with the petition, the parties entered into a stipulation, approved by the Court on September 1, 2026, under which NSF, NEH, NIH, DOD, and DOT agreed not to re-terminate the grants at issue in both the First Amendment and Form Termination classes while any Supreme Court proceedings are pending.
On July 15, 2026, Plaintiffs filed a combined Motion for Summary Judgment and Motion to Certify Class, supported by stipulations in which each defendant agency admitted to many of key the facts underlying Plaintiffs’ claims—including that they selected grants for termination because the grants “expressed, or were presumed to express, viewpoints disfavored by the Administration” and “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.” Briefing on the summary judgment motion and class certification as to all claims except the Equal Protection claim against the Department of Energy has been stayed pending the Supreme Court’s resolution of the certiorari petition. The DOE Equal Protection claim will proceed on the current schedule, with a hearing set for October 20, 2026.
EPA Settlement
Plaintiffs and the EPA have reached an agreement to resolve claims against the EPA on a class-wide basis. Plaintiffs will file a motion for preliminary approval of the Settlement by September 23, 2026.