XPost: alt.politics.republicans, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics
XPost: talk.politics.guns, law.court.federal

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling Thursday, enabled the Trump
administration to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in National
Institutes of Health (NIH) grants linked to diversity initiatives.

The decision partially lifts a Boston-based judge�s ruling that declared
the cancellations illegal and blocked the administration from moving
forward.

Five of the court�s six Republican-appointed justices sided with the administration: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch,
Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

They said the judge wasn�t following the high court�s emergency decision
this spring allowing the administration to cancel education grants.
Gorsuch was the most pointed in his criticism, accusing the judge and
several others of defying the high court.

�Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court�s decisions,
but they are never free to defy them,� Gorsuch wrote.

Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the court�s three Democratic-
appointed justices in dissent, saying the case could be distinguished.

�This relief�which has prospective and generally applicable implications
beyond the reinstatement of specific grants�falls well within the scope of
the District Court�s jurisdiction,� Roberts wrote.

He wrote just one paragraph. But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the
court�s junior most justice and one of its most prolific dissenters,
penned a solo, 21-page critique.

�This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one
rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins,� Jackson wrote.

It marks the 18th time the Supreme Court has at least partially granted an emergency bid during Trump�s second term.

The NIH moved in February to terminate grants that do not align with
President Trump�s priorities, including those related to diversity, equity
and inclusion (DEI) programs.

U.S. District Judge William Young, an appointee of former President
Reagan, blocked the cuts in June in response to lawsuits filed by health
groups and 16 Democratic state attorneys general.

Administration lawyers say the block covered $783 million in canceled
grants at odds with the president�s policies. In court papers, they
singled out ones that fund �Buddhism and HIV stigma in Thailand� and �controlled puberty in transgender adolescents.�

The administration went to the Supreme Court after a 1st U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals panel declined to lift Young�s order.

It is not a final ruling, and the case could ultimately return to the high court.

The Trump administration argued Young had no authority to intervene
because it is a contract dispute that federal law requires to be brought
in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Though the five-justice majority agreed that�s true for the grant cancellations, Barrett agreed with the dissenters that a separate part of Young�s ruling wiping NIH guidance documents could still stand.

The Justice Department had accused the judge of defying the Supreme
Court�s ruling in April that rejected a challenge to education grant cuts
on those grounds.

�This case is not closed. The district court flouted vertical stare
decisis by following this Court�s dissenters over the majority,� the
Justice Department wrote, using the Latin term for the legal principle
that lower courts follow a higher court�s precedent.

�That alone should warrant a swift rebuke.�

The Democratic states and health groups sought to distinguish the case, insisting the lower judge had authority to block the NIH grant cuts.

�The federal government�s application spins a tale of lower courts
disregarding established legal guardrails to block routine agency
decisions. That narrative bears little resemblance to reality; indeed, it
gets things exactly backward,� the states wrote in their Supreme Court
papers.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5464453-supreme-court-allows- trump-to-gut-dei-linked-nih-grants/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)