A federal judge has dealt another legal setback to the Trump administration, ordering it to return millions in research funding to UCLA that had been frozen in defiance of her earlier ruling.
In a decision issued late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin directed the National Science Foundation (NSF) to reinstate grants it had suspended, calling the move “arbitrary and capricious.” The administration now has until Aug. 19 to either restore the funds or explain to the court why it has not complied.
The exact total remains uncertain, but UCLA officials said last week that $584 million in federal grants from multiple agencies had been pulled. Lin’s order applies specifically to the NSF portion.
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According to the judge, the funding freeze is part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to pressure universities it views as politically out of step. University of California researchers have called the cuts “abrupt and unexplained” and in June won a preliminary injunction blocking the termination of grants without a detailed justification.
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Despite that ruling, the NSF issued new suspension letters on July 30, notices Lin described as “en masse, form letter funding cuts.” One claimed the awards “no longer effectuate program goals or agency priorities.” Another referenced allegations of racism, antisemitism, and policies regarding transgender athletes at UCLA but offered no further explanation.
In court, administration lawyers, according to AP’s report, argued the grants were merely “suspended,” not “terminated.” Lin rejected that defense outright. “NSF’s indefinite suspensions differ from a termination in name only,” she wrote, adding that the stated reasons relied on “the same type of deficient explanations as the original terminations.”
UCLA welcomed the ruling in a brief statement: “Restoration of National Science Foundation funds is critical to research the University of California performs on behalf of California and the Nation.”
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The legal battle comes as UCLA also faces a $1 billion settlement demand from the Trump administration over antisemitism allegations, making it the first public university to be directly targeted under the administration’s push to reshape the nation’s academic institutions.
