National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Assn.
The Supreme Court partially blocked a lower-court ruling that had ordered the National Institutes of Health to restore thousands of research grants it canceled under executive orders targeting DEI, gender identity, and COVID-19 research.
The Court ruled that grant-reinstatement claims probably belong in a specialized federal court that handles money claims against the government — not in the district court that found the cancellations unlawful — while leaving the ruling against NIH's underlying guidance documents in place for now.
How it got here: The district court held a bench trial, found NIH's mass grant cancellations arbitrary and capricious, and vacated both the guidance documents and individual terminations; the First Circuit denied a stay; the government applied to the Supreme Court for emergency relief.
The Case in Depth
What happened
The National Institutes of Health canceled thousands of research grants in early 2025 following executive orders directing the elimination of funding for DEI, gender identity, and COVID-19 research. Studies on HIV, Alzheimer's disease, suicide prevention, and cardiovascular disease were among those cut — many in a sweeping process lasting less than 90 days. Researchers, doctors, unions, and 16 states sued, arguing the mass cancellations violated federal law requiring agencies to engage in reasoned decision-making.
The question before the Court
After a federal court ruled that NIH's mass cancellation of research grants was unlawfully arbitrary, could the same court also order the grants restored — or do payment-based grant claims belong in a different federal court entirely?
The Court's answer
Partly. The Court paused the part of the lower-court ruling that vacated the individual grant terminations and effectively required NIH to restore the canceled grants. The Court held that claims centered on enforcing or reinstating federally funded grants are essentially money claims against the government, which under the Tucker Act belong in the Court of Federal Claims — a specialized tribunal for financial disputes with the federal government — not in an ordinary district court invoking the APA. The government also showed the money, once disbursed, could not be recovered, satisfying the requirement that it face irreparable harm.
The Court did not pause the separate ruling striking down NIH's guidance documents. Justice Barrett, whose vote was decisive, found that the government had failed to press any argument for staying that portion of the ruling in its own application, and had therefore not shown it was entitled to that relief. The government remains free to challenge the guidance ruling before the First Circuit in the ordinary course of the appeal.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Researchers, hospitals, and universities whose NIH grants were canceled face a split legal path: they may win a ruling that the cancellation policy was unlawful in one court, yet be unable to recover their actual grant money there. Studies on HIV, Alzheimer's, suicide prevention, and other conditions remain in jeopardy while the litigation continues across multiple forums.
What changes now
The portion of the district court's ruling that vacated the individual grant terminations is paused while the government appeals to the First Circuit (and potentially the Supreme Court on certiorari). The ruling against NIH's guidance documents remains in effect and will be litigated in the First Circuit. Researchers who lost grants face the prospect of pursuing any reinstatement remedy in the Court of Federal Claims — a forum that may lack authority to order equitable reinstatement rather than money damages. This order is not a final ruling on the merits.
What this does not decide
The order does not decide whether NIH's guidance or grant terminations actually violated the APA. It does not resolve whether the Court of Federal Claims can award reinstatement — as opposed to money damages — for unlawfully terminated grants, or whether a successful APA challenge to the guidance could ever reach the individual terminations that resulted from it.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Barrett
Justice Barrett agreed that grant termination claims belong in the Court of Federal Claims, not district court, following California. She wrote separately to explain why the guidance and grant-termination challenges properly go to different courts — vacating guidance does not automatically void the individual terminations that flowed from it, making the claims legally distinct. She also explained that the government's failure to press any argument for staying the guidance vacatur meant it was not entitled to that additional relief.
Dissent in part — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts would have denied the stay in full. In his view, the district court's vacatur of the guidance documents — which the government itself called a 'uniform policy' 'implemented globally' — carried with it proper jurisdiction over the resulting grant terminations. He argued that the two remedies were inseparable, as recognized in Bowen v. Massachusetts, and that the district court was not required to split the case into two parts.
Concurrence in part — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch agreed with staying the grant terminations but would have gone further and stayed the guidance vacatur too. He wrote primarily to criticize the district court for defying the California precedent — openly citing the California dissents as 'persuasive authority' to reach a contrary result. He argued that lower courts are duty-bound to follow Supreme Court precedent regardless of disagreement, and flagged that this was the third time in weeks the Court had to intercede in cases 'squarely controlled' by its prior decisions.
Concurrence in part — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh agreed with Gorsuch and would have granted the stay in full. He argued separately that the guidance challenge was unlikely to succeed on the merits — the APA does not require agencies to define every term in internal guidance documents steering highly discretionary funding decisions. He also rejected the suggestion that the Court could simply avoid making an interim forum-channeling decision by denying the application.
Dissent in part — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson would have denied the stay in full. She argued at length that the plaintiffs' claims are straightforward APA arbitrary-and-capricious claims — not contract claims — and that the Tucker Act has nothing to say about them. She contended the Court's split-track framework leaves plaintiffs with no realistic path to full relief, contradicts Bowen, and effectively eliminates district courts' power to remedy unlawful grant terminations. She criticized the broader pattern of emergency-docket rulings favoring the executive branch, calling the result 'Calvinball jurisprudence.'
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- To obtain an emergency stay, the government had to satisfy a four-factor test: showing a strong likelihood of winning the underlying legal dispute, that it would suffer irreparable harm without a stay, that the other side would not be disproportionately harmed, and that the public interest favors a stay. Two lower courts had already refused, so the government carried an especially heavy burden.
- The Court applied its earlier decision in Department of Education v. California (2025), which held that the APA's limited waiver of the government's immunity from suit does not allow district courts to order the government to pay money pursuant to federal grants. Such claims, California explained, belong in the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act — the law that generally channels money-based suits against the federal government to that specialized court.
- The Court rejected the argument that framing a grant-payment claim as 'vacatur of agency action' rather than 'breach of contract' changes the jurisdictional analysis. An order vacating the government's decision to terminate grants is, in every meaningful sense, an order requiring the government to pay those grants — the district court's own judgment made that plain by instructing the government that vacation 'should result in forthwith disbursement of funds.'
- On irreparable harm: the Court noted that while loss of money is not normally irreparable, it becomes irreparable when the funds cannot be recovered. Because the plaintiffs had not represented that they would repay grant money if the government ultimately prevailed — and because their own stated lack of financial resources undercut any claim they could make the government whole — the government faced the requisite irreparable harm.
- As to the guidance documents separately: Justice Barrett, the deciding vote, concluded that the government's stay application largely ignored the guidance and pressed merits arguments only about the grant terminations. Having failed to show any irreparable harm or likely success on the guidance-specific question, the government was not entitled to a stay of that portion of the rulings. Challenges to the guidance can proceed before the First Circuit.
- The result is a split-track framework: claims that NIH's guidance was unlawfully arbitrary and capricious may proceed in district court, but claims seeking restoration of the terminated grants must be pursued — if at all — in the Court of Federal Claims, which generally can award only money damages rather than equitable reinstatement of grants.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Department of Ed. v. California (604 U.S. ___)
The Court extended California's holding that grant-payment claims belong in the Court of Federal Claims, not district court.
Distinguishes Bowen v. Massachusetts (487 U.S. 879)
Barrett's concurrence distinguished Bowen, finding grant-termination claims legally separate from vacatur of agency guidance.