Trump ordered to restore millions of frozen scientific funds to the UCLA

The American district judge Rita F. Lin judged Tuesday evening that the NSF was to restore the suspended research subsidies for reasons which it had already deemed “arbitrary and capricious” and gave the administration until August 19 to show compliance or explain why it did not restore the money.

It was not immediately clear how many funds could be returned to the UCLA. The school chancellor said last week that the Trump administration had fired $ 584 million from federal subsidies from various federal agencies. The judge’s decision applies specifically to NSF subsidies.

UCLA money was frozen as a wider pressure campaign targeting universities which, according to Trump, are out of step with its political agenda.

Researchers from the University of California have challenged the cuts as “steep and unexplained” and won a preliminary injunction in June of linen, which judged that the NSF and other agencies could not terminate the funding of subsidies without specifically explaining why.

But on July 30, the NSF sent a new series of letters that Lin described as “en masse, reductions in the financing of letters.” One said that prices “no longer accept program objectives or agency priorities”. Another has cited allegations of racism, anti -Semitism and policies concerning transgender athletes of the UCLA. He did not develop.

The administration argued during an audience on Tuesday that UCLA financing discounts were “suspensions” rather than “endings”. Lin rejected this as a semantics.

“The indefinite suspensions of the NSF differ from a name termination only”, and the reasons why the agency provided is based on “the same type of deficient explanations as original endings”, she judged.

The University has published a brief statement praising the decision, saying that “the restoration of the National Science Foundation funds is essential to seek the search for the University of California on behalf of California and the nation”.

The UCLA also faces a Trump administration request to pay $ 1 billion to settle anti -Semitism allegations. The UCLA has become the first public university to be targeted because the administration seeks to dominate university institutions across the country.

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