by Zack Schonfeld at The Hill
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…
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