Trump Asks SCOTUS to OK $793M Cuts     07/25 06:31

   The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow it to 
cut hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of research funding in its push to 
roll back federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on 
Thursday to allow it to cut hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of research 
funding in its push to roll back federal diversity, equity and inclusion 
efforts.

   The Justice Department argued a federal judge in Massachusetts was wrong to 
block the National Institutes of Health from making $783 million worth of cuts 
to align with President Donald Trump's priorities.

   U.S. District Judge William Young found that the abrupt cancellations 
ignored long-held government rules and standards.

   Young, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, also said the 
cuts amounted to "racial discrimination and discrimination against America's 
LGBTQ community."

   "I've never seen government racial discrimination like this," Young said at 
a hearing last month. An appeals court left the ruling in place.

   The ruling came in lawsuits filed by 16 attorneys general, public-health 
advocacy groups and some affected scientists. His decision addressed only a 
fraction of the hundreds of NIH research projects that have been cut.

   The Trump administration's appeal also takes aim at nearly two dozen cases 
over funding.

   Solicitor General D. John Sauer pointed to a 5-4 decision on the Supreme 
Court's emergency docket from April that allowed cuts to teacher training 
programs to go forward, one of multiple recent victories for the president at 
the nation's highest court. The order shows that district judges shouldn't be 
hearing those cases at all, but rather sending them to federal claims court, he 
argued.

   "Those decisions reflect quintessential policy judgments on hotly contested 
issues that should not be subject to judicial second-guessing. It is hardly 
irrational for agencies to recognize--as members of this Court have done--that 
paeans to 'diversity' often conceal invidious racial discrimination," he wrote.