Millions of dollars in terminated NIH grants in Philadelphia have been restored after a judge’s ruling

Millions of federal grant dollars are returning to the Philadelphia area after a federal judge ruled that sweeping cuts to medical research funding by President Donald Trump’s administration were discriminatory.

New Jersey and Delaware will also claw back millions in funding lost at public universities when dozens of National Institutes of Health grants were abruptly canceled earlier this year.

Pennsylvania, unlike New Jersey and Delaware, did not join a lawsuit seeking the return of grants at the states’ public universities.

Locally, the researchers who are seeing grants restored are members of the American Public Health Association, a lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that has spurred the reversal of terminated grants for those working at private universities.

At least eight grants to Philadelphia-based research institutions have had funding restored, according to a list provided to The Inquirer by the American Civil Liberties Union, another participant in the lawsuit, which said its list is likely an undercount.

This includes work at Drexel University under a $20 million grant to spearhead health equity research around the country, the largest grant terminated in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and research at the University of Pennsylvania focusing on preventing vaping in LGBTQ teenagers.

Across Pennsylvania, a total of 15 grants have been restored, an Inquirer analysis of information provided by plaintiffs in the lawsuits shows.

In New Jersey, 18 grants were restored, mostly to researchers at public universities.

Five grants were restored in Delaware. Both states’ attorney generals sued on behalf of their public universities.

The reversal follows rulings by Judge William N. Young, a Republican appointee, who found that the cuts were racially discriminatory and also discriminated against LBGTQ Americans.

The Trump administration has argued that the cuts to NIH grants are necessary to curb government waste. The impact was especially significant on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, a target of the Trump administration.

An Inquirer analysis of $47 million in grants reportedly terminated in the Philadelphia region as of late June found that a third of these grants referenced diversity, equity, inclusion, or common permutations of those keywords.

During a June hearing in Massachusetts federal court, Young said he had never seen “government racial discrimination like this” in his 40-year career. “Have we no shame?” he asked.

It’s unclear exactly how many grants might have been restored in Pennsylvania had the state participated in a lawsuit challenging the cuts.

But Pennsylvania appears to have far more grants with funding still cut than neighboring states that sued. About 81% of the grants canceled in Pennsylvania since the cuts began — 66 grants in total, about a third of them at public universities — still appear to be terminated and do not appear in court documents listing grants that should be returned as a result of the rulings.

By contrast, court documents and the government’s public lists show most of the canceled NIH grants at public universities in New Jersey have been restored; so have five of nine grants given to public universities in Delaware.

Pennsylvania Attorney General David Sunday, a Republican, did not return a request for comment.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat, hailed the return of research funding in the state, saying his office was proud to stand up for scientists, researchers, and educators.

“We will continue to fight back against this administration’s illegal cuts to essential federal funding,” he said.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, has in recent weeks quietly removed some grants — including some that the APHA sued to restore — from its publicly posted list of grants canceled at research institutions across the country.

It is difficult to pinpoint how much money is returning to researchers. HHS’s reporting of its own grant terminations sometimes does not match reports from researchers and university officials.

Drexel officials, for example, said NIH notified the school that it would receive about $5 million back as a result of two restored grants, but publicly posted HHS data claimed the agency had cut only $3.4 million when it terminated the grants.

Though federal officials have promised to operate with “maximum transparency,” several area researchers with grants on HHS’s evolving list of cuts previously told The Inquirer that their grants were not actually terminated. And government officials have offered little public explanation of the criteria they use to cut grants in the first place.

Within the Philadelphia region, Drexel had been disproportionately impacted by cuts to grant funding, with HHS reporting that it had cut $9 million in NIH grants there, The Inquirer’s analysis showed.

One restored grant at Drexel studied how stigma affects HIV prevention and treatment among gay and transgender Latinos. Ayden Scheim, the Drexel researcher awarded the grant, said he was grateful to get the money back.

But he said the project has been delayed because of the cancellation, wasting time and money. While funding for the first year of his grant was restored, he is still waiting on assurance from the NIH that the grant’s second year of funding will also be returned.

He and his coresearchers will also have to restart the process of hiring staff for the study, which had been nearly complete when funds were pulled.

Drexel is also seeing restored funding associated with its grant to serve as a national “coordinating center” overseeing a slew of research projects related to health disparities based on social factors like race, ethnicity, and income. This included efforts to address food insecurity in Florida and to improve access to treatment for chronic illnesses in the Philadelphia region.

The university is appealing several other terminated grants and working with other schools to advocate for the further restoration of research funds.

“It’s pretty absurd that it comes down to luck. It’s pretty clear from the ruling that the terminations were blatantly illegal,” Scheim said. “[Getting your grant restored] shouldn’t come down to whether you happen to be a member of a particular professional association or live in a particular state.”

HHS stands by its decision “to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people,“ and is “exploring all legal options” in lawsuits over the cuts, including appealing the ruling, spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

“Under the leadership of Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration, HHS is committed to ensuring that taxpayer dollars support programs rooted in evidence-based practices and gold standard science — not driven by divisive DEI mandates or gender ideology," Nixon said, referring to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The health news outlet STAT reported last month that NIH has paused new terminations of grants, and the federal government is working on a new strategy for canceling grants that could protect them from more legal challenges.

At Penn, the Trump administration had also paused $175 million in federal funding because the university allowed a transgender athlete to compete on the women’s swim team during the 2021-22 season. The administration said that funding was restored this month after Penn reached a deal and agreed to apologize to women swimmers, among other actions.

Researchers across the country have been working for months to understand the scope of the administration’s unprecedented cuts to scientific research.

Scott Delaney, a Harvard University research scientist who studies environmental health, cocreated the website Grant Watch to track canceled grants when the terminations started in March. He filed a declaration on his work as part of the APHA’s lawsuit.

Delaney said advocates need to continue to continue the legal fight against canceled grants across government agencies.

“It’s likely to succeed — it has already,” he said.