The Trump White House just said the quiet part out loud in a series of signed stipulations in the federal court case, Thakur v. Trump, a class-action lawsuit launched last spring by University of California researchers that accuses the Trump Administration of mass-killing billions of dollars in federal research grants based on political motivation.
Their new stipulations submitted to federal court all but prove that.
The Trump Admin's court filing argued that federal agencies " did not terminate any grants based on alleged noncompliance with the terms of the grant." Instead, it utilized "general criteria, rather than grant-specific assessment of each award’s compliance, or performance." In that filing, the Trump White House admitted to using keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy, and COVID-19 to screen projects, ultimately gutting any that didn't align with Donald Trump's platform and priorities.
Lawyers for the UC professors were quick to note that, instead of serving as a defense for their actions, the Trump Administration's legal team essentially served them their proof of at least three massive Constitutional violations on a silver platter:
1. By using keyword searches to review hundreds of grants and terminate them en masse rather than reviewing them individually on their merits, the Trump administration targeted research it found politically disfavorable, which is a First Amendment violation.
2. In terminating 283 Department of Energy grants from states where a majority voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, and leaving untouched hundreds of grants that went to “red” states, the Trump administration wrongly punished researchers for merely living in states the White House politically opposed.
3. And by terminating billions of dollars in grants, and never rerouting that money to other grant opportunities, the Trump administration violated the constitution by not spending money in ways Congress specifically required through laws it passed on how research funds should be used.
Attorneys for the researchers are now asking the judge presiding over their class-action case to skip a trial altogether and formally rule that the Trump White House repeatedly violated the US Constitution, particularly the First Amendment rights of the researchers.
A court hearing to determine whether the judge will do so is slated for October 20th.
