A conservative Supreme Court justice appointed by President Donald Trump has officially had enough
WASHINGTON D.C. — A conservative Supreme Court justice appointed by President Donald Trump has officially had enough.
In a blockbuster 5-4 decision that handed the Trump administration a massive victory over federal research funding, Justice Neil Gorsuch unleashed a jaw-dropping, scathing rebuke of lower court judges who have repeatedly attempted to defy rulings from the highest court in the land.
The ruling successfully allowed the Trump administration to completely slash millions of dollars in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants that were explicitly tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, gender identity research, and COVID-19. Under this new ruling, the NIH—the world’s largest source of public biomedical research funding—will no longer award grants based on race or DEI objectives.
“NEVER FREE TO DEFY”
The case reached the Supreme Court after a rogue federal judge in Massachusetts explicitly ordered the government to continue making the payments, completely disregarding a Supreme Court ruling from earlier this year that permitted Trump to cut similar DEI-related grants. A coalition of 16 Democratic attorneys general and public health groups sued, crying discrimination.
Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, used the decision to drop an absolute hammer on the insubordinate lower courts.
“This marks the third time in a matter of weeks this Court has had to reverse a lower court on an issue it had already addressed,” Gorsuch wrote. “Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett provided the crucial deciding vote
Justice Amy Coney Barrett provided the crucial deciding vote. She joined conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh in terminating the controversial NIH grants. However, she sided with Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberal justices to leave intact a lower court’s decision regarding NIH guidance documents.
A PATTERN OF JUDICIAL DEFIANCE
Gorsuch fiercely stressed that the Massachusetts district court’s actions were not a “one-off.” He pointed directly to a terrifying pattern of lower courts actively resisting Supreme Court orders:
The Deportation Blockade: In July, the justices ruled 7-2 to block a district court’s attempt to override the high court’s order allowing Trump to resume third-country deportations. Even liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who originally dissented, was forced to side with the majority to enforce the order, writing: “I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.”
The CPSC Firings: That same month, the Supreme Court had to strike down another lower court ruling that attempted to block Trump from firing three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), despite the justices already granting Trump the authority to dismiss administrative agency members.
“All these interventions should have been unnecessary, but together they underscore a basic tenet of our judicial system: Whatever their own views, judges are duty-bound to respect ‘the hierarchy of the federal court system created by the Constitution and Congress,’” Gorsuch declared.
DISMANTLING THE DEI AGENDA
DISMANTLING THE DEI AGENDA
Since returning to office in January 2025, President Trump has aggressively signed executive orders dismantling Biden-era DEI programs, rightfully labeling them as “radical” and “shameful discrimination.”
This recent decision reversed U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, who in June ordered the NIH to restore the grants using unusually sharp, activist language.
Young boldly declared from the bench: “This represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.”
The Supreme Court fundamentally disagreed. It remains entirely unclear why a federal judge believed he could legally compel the Trump administration to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to fund programs to “raise awareness” about LGBTQ issues, or why stopping that funding is somehow tantamount to “discrimination.”
With the immediate funding now completely halted, the Trump administration has secured yet another monumental win in its aggressive series of emergency appeals to the High Court.
