Scientists Sue NIH Over Grant Keyword Screening
Was the blacklist of 235 words unconstitutional or simply an agency setting legitimate priorities?
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Above: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) logo on a smartphone screen in Athens, Greece, on May 22. Image credit: Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto/Getty Images
The Facts
- A group of scientists filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging the agency screens research grants unconstitutionally.
- The suit, backed by the ACLU, the ACLU of Northern California, Protect Democracy, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, names NIH chief Jay Bhattacharya, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and DOGE as defendants.
- Plaintiffs claim the NIH uses a list of at least 235 keywords, including "gender," "Latinx" and "climate change," to flag grants for termination, denial or forced renegotiation. Researchers refusing to remove the terms risk losing funding.
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The Spin
Left narrative
Blocking biomedical research over a blacklist of 235 words like "gender," "equity" and "climate change" is censorship. Congress required that NIH grants be awarded on scientific merit and the First Amendment bars penalizing scientists based on administration ideology.
Right narrative
There is no First Amendment right to a taxpayer-funded NIH grant. Agencies get to set research priorities and shift funding toward topics deemed to have primacy, and losing out on a subsidy does not amount to censorship. This suit is a frivolous waste.
