The Trump administration halted 64 grants the federal government was giving to the University of Arizona (UA), totaling $59.2 million, according to AZPM.
Funding was cut for projects such as integrating Indigenous knowledge into geoscience education at Grand Canyon National Park and addressing racial inequity in STEM education.
The Trump administration has attempted to cut more than $250 million in grants to Arizona universities, research institutions, and companies. More than 300 of the UA’s 376 grants would be affected if all the cuts were implemented, totaling $126 million of the university’s $229 million in grants.
Another grant that was canceled “would have focused on addressing some of the disproportionate negative impacts of stormwater flooding on marginalized communities in New Orleans,” said Kristin Gunckel, a professor of science education in UA’s College of Education. Three of the grants went to Native Americans, including one that would have provided free assistance to tribes to help them obtain environmental justice funding.
AZPM also reported that funding for 10 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is not up for renewal, although future eligibility was restored for four NIH awards.
Many of the Trump administration’s cuts in grant funding have been halted by federal district court judges, in large part due to Attorney General Kris Mayes and other Democratic attorneys general filing lawsuits. Although the Supreme Court held in Trump v. CASA recently that federal district court judges could no longer issue nationwide injunctions, because Mayes was a plaintiff in most of these lawsuits, the injunctions remain in place with Arizona. According to a UA spokesperson, due to the lawsuits, $5 million in grants has been restored.
On January 28, U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan in Washington, D.C., issued a temporary administrative stay to halt the Trump administration’s plan to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans.
Almost two weeks later, U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Massachusetts issued a nationwide injunction blocking NIH from implementing steep cuts to “indirect cost” rates for research grants, which would have reduced reimbursements from an average of 27–28 percent to 15 percent. This policy threatened over $250 million in active NIH grants to Arizona entities, including $126 million for 300-plus grants at UA.
Similarly, on June 17, U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young in Massachusetts ruled that the Trump administration’s termination of hundreds of NIH grants was “void and illegal,” ordering some to be reinstated, including those affecting research at UA.
Four days later, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts struck down a Trump administration policy to cut National Science Foundation research funding.
Due to the injunctions, six USAID grants to UA that the Trump administration attempted to cut remain in place, including the Climate Adaptation Research Program and the Climate Adaptation Support Activity. Four grants worth over $8.5 million, which had mainly been allocated to overseas climate change projects, have also been reinstated.
One of the largest grants from the NIH, valued at $23,294,003 and reinstated, was awarded to UA for “Environmental Health.” Part of the grant description stated, “Conducting environmental public health research, including in areas of environmental justice and health disparities… to foster and encourage participation of socially and economically disadvantaged small business concerns and women-owned small business concerns in technological innovation.”
However, on April 3, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to pause one injunction by a lower court judge. U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Massachusetts had issued a temporary restraining order requiring the Department of Education to reinstate over $65 million in grants terminated for DEI-related programs in the eight states that brought the lawsuit, including Arizona.
UA claimed that it paused construction on a new biomedical research center due to the cuts. UA has 555 federally funded research projects listed on its website, apparently a reduction from March when it was reportedly 730.
The Trump administration is in the process of appealing the district court judges’ injunctions. At least 10,000 grants nationwide have been terminated by the Trump administration so far. In February, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court order that required it to pay $2 billion in foreign assistance funds for State Department and USAID projects.
Both Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University are facing similar cuts. The Arizona Sun Times previously covered some of the most controversial federal grants to Arizona’s universities.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
