In mid-June, a federal judge issued a stinging rebuke to the Trump administration, declaring that its decision to cancel the funding for many grants issued by the National Institutes of Health was illegal, and suggesting that the policy was likely animated by racism. But the detailed reasoning behind his decision wasn't released at the time. The written portion of the decision was finally issued on Wednesday, and it has a number of notable features.

For starters, it's more limited in scope due to a pair of Supreme Court decisions that were issued in the intervening weeks. As a consequence, far fewer grants will see their funding restored. Regardless, the court continues to find that the government's actions were arbitrary and capricious, in part because the government never bothered to define the problems that would get a grant canceled. As a result, officials within the NIH simply canceled lists of grants they received from DOGE without bothering to examine their scientific merit, and then struggled to retroactively describe a policy that justified the actions afterward—a process that led several of them to resign.

A more limited verdict

The issue before Judge William Young of the District of Massachusetts was whether the government had followed the law in terminating grants funded by the National Institutes of Health. After a short trial, Young issued a verbal ruling that the government hadn't, and that he had concluded that its actions were the product of "racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ. community." But the details of his decisions and the evidence that motivated them had to wait for a written ruling, which is now available.

In the meantime, however, the Supreme Court had shifted the ground on a couple of issues. For example, while Young still feels that policy decisions were motivated by discrimination against the LGBTQ community, the United States v. Skrmetti decision limits what he can do about it. Young writes that the decision "leads this Court to conclude that, while here there is federal government discrimination based on a person’s status, not all discrimination is pejorative."

Separately, Trump v. Casa blocked the use of a national injunction against illegal activity. So, while the government's actions have been determined to be illegal, Young can only protect the people who were parties to this suit. Anyone who lost a grant but wasn't a member of any of the parties involved, or based in any of the states that sued, remains on their own.

Those issues aside, the ruling largely focuses on whether the termination of grants violates the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs how the executive branch handles decision- and rule-making. Specifically, it requires that any decisions of this sort cannot be "arbitrary and capricious." And, Young concludes that the government hasn't cleared that bar.

Arbitrary and capricious

The grant cancellations, Young concludes, "Arise from the NIH’s newly minted war against undefined concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion and gender identity, that has expanded to include vaccine hesitancy, COVID, influencing public opinion and climate change." The "undefined" aspect plays a key part in his reasoning. Referring to DEI, he writes, "No one has ever defined it to this Court—and this Court has asked multiple times." It's not defined in Trump's executive order that launched the "newly minted war," and Young found that administrators within the NIH issued multiple documents that attempted to define it, not all of which were consistent with each other, and in some cases seemed to use circular reasoning.

He also noted that the officials who sent these memos had a tendency to resign shortly afterward, writing, "it is not lost on the Court that oftentimes people vote with their feet."

As a result, the NIH staff had no solid guidance for determining whether a given grant violated the new anti-DEI policy, or how that might be weighed against the scientific merit of the grant. So, how were they to identify which grants needed to be terminated? The evidence revealed at trial indicates that they didn't need to make those decisions; DOGE made them for the NIH. In one case, an NIH official approved a list of grants to terminate received from DOGE only two minutes after it showed up in his inbox.

"There is no reasoned decision-making at all with respect to the NIH’s 'abruptness' in the 'robotic rollout' of this grant-termination action," Young concludes. "Based upon a fair preponderance of the evidence and on the sparse administrative record, the Court finds and rules that HHS and, in turn, NIH, are being force-fed unworkable 'policy' supported with sparse pseudo-reasoning, and wholly unsupported statements."

Young also noted that the termination of grants to Columbia University was equally arbitrary. "How the scientific and research activities had any connection with unrest issues on Columbia’s campus is conspicuously never explained," Young noted. "The record evidence certainly reveals none."

A small win against a larger loss

Given all that, it's little surprise that the ruling declares the grant terminations to be arbitrary and capricious. "The Public Officials [at the NIH] in their haste to appease the Executive, simply moved too fast and broke things," Young concluded, "including the law." That provides the legal reasoning behind his earlier decision to restore the cancelled grants, although as noted, this has now been limited to only those grants held by researchers who are covered by one of the organizations or governments that filed the suit.

But Young also appears to lament the fact that he had to intervene here, writing:

The American people have enjoyed a historical norm of a largely apolitical scientific research agency supporting research in an elegant, merit-based approach that benefits everyone. That historical norm changed on January 20, 2025. The new Administration began weaponizing what should not be weaponized—the health of all Americans through its abuse of HHS and the NIH systems, creating chaos and promoting an unreasonable an unreasoned agenda of blacklisting certain topics, that on this Administrative Record, has absolutely nothing to do with the promotion of science or research.

So, while the decision restores money to individual research programs, it does nothing to reverse the larger damage caused by the politicization of funding decisions.

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CBS owner Paramount has reached a $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over his claim that 60 Minutes deceptively manipulated a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris. Trump's lawsuit has been widely described as frivolous, but Paramount seemed motivated to settle because its pending $8.4 billion merger with Skydance needed regulatory approval from the Trump administration.

In a statement provided to Ars today, Paramount said it "has reached an agreement in principle to resolve the lawsuit filed by President Trump and Representative [Ronny] Jackson in the Northern District of Texas and a threatened defamation action concerning a separate 60 Minutes report."

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for a bribery investigation into Paramount. "With Paramount folding to Donald Trump at the same time the company needs his administration's approval for its billion-dollar merger, this could be bribery in plain sight," she said in a statement today. "Paramount has refused to provide answers to a congressional inquiry, so I'm calling for a full investigation into whether or not any anti-bribery laws were broken."

Sens. Warren, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) previously told Paramount Chair Shari Redstone in a letter that settling the lawsuit could violate the federal bribery law making it "illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act."

NPR reported that "Trump declared victory in holding 'the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit,' according to a spokesperson for his legal team, who said Paramount and CBS had no choice but to settle. 'President Trump will always ensure that no one gets away with lying to the American People as he continues on his singular mission to Make America Great Again.'"

Payout to future presidential library

Paramount told us that the settlement terms were proposed by a mediator and that it will pay $16 million, including plaintiffs' fees and costs. That amount, minus the fees and costs, will be allocated to Trump's future presidential library, Paramount said. Trump's complaint sought at least $20 billion in damages.

Paramount also said that "no amount will be paid directly or indirectly to President Trump or Rep. Jackson personally" and that the settlement will release Paramount from "all claims regarding any CBS reporting through the date of the settlement, including the Texas action and the threatened defamation action."

Warren's statement said the "settlement exposes a glaring need for rules to restrict donations to sitting presidents' libraries," and that she will "introduce new legislation to rein in corruption through presidential library donations. The Trump administration's level of sheer corruption is appalling and Paramount should be ashamed of putting its profits over independent journalism."

Trump previously obtained settlements from ABC, Meta, and X Corp.

Paramount said the settlement "does not include a statement of apology or regret." It "agreed that in the future, 60 Minutes will release transcripts of interviews with eligible US presidential candidates after such interviews have aired, subject to redactions as required for legal or national security concerns."

FCC’s news distortion investigation

Trump and Paramount previously told the court that they were in advanced settlement negotiations and are scheduled to file a joint status report on Thursday.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has been probing CBS over the Harris interview and holding up Paramount's merger with Skydance. Carr revived a complaint that was previously dismissed by the FCC and which alleges that CBS intentionally distorted the news by airing two different answers given by Harris to the same question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

CBS released an unedited transcript and camera feeds of the interview that show the two clips simply showed two different sentences from the same answer. But Carr wasn't satisfied with CBS's response and has said he would consider the news distortion complaint in the FCC's review of the Paramount/Skydance merger.

Now that Paramount has settled with Trump, it wouldn't be surprising to see Carr end the news distortion investigation and approve the merger. But Paramount has insisted that the "lawsuit is completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process."

CBS execs resigned

In April, 60 Minutes Executive Producer Bill Owens resigned and reportedly told staff in a memo that "over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience." CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon resigned in May, saying it had "become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward."

The Freedom of the Press Foundation told Redstone in May that it plans to file a shareholder derivative lawsuit on behalf of Paramount if the company settles with Trump.

"As you know, the prospect of settling has drawn widespread backlash from CBS News employees as well as outside journalists and First Amendment advocates and led to ridicule from late-night talk show hosts," the group's letter said. "Disinterested experts almost unanimously agree that Trump's lawsuit is frivolous. Everyone from US senators to respected financial writers have noted that a settlement could amount to a bribe to Trump and his administration in exchange for their approving and not impeding the Paramount-Skydance merger."

Paramount itself said in a court filing that the "lawsuit is an affront to the First Amendment and is without basis in law or fact." The company's motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit is still pending, but the case would be closed once the settlement is approved and finalized.

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