While Missouri’s former Attorney General Andrew Bailey did not join a federal lawsuit seeking to protect National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants from Trump administration interference, Washington University could be among institutions that benefit from a settlement announced last week.
In a settlement agreement filed Dec. 29, 2025, in federal court in Massachusetts, NIH and a group of Democratic attorneys general who challenged new grant funding criteria said the agency would consider applications submitted through Sept. 29, 2025, “without judging the efforts related to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, or vaccines.”
Under the agreement, the Trump administration will allow NIH to review previously frozen grants without using controversial standards that discouraged initiatives involving gender, race and sexual orientation, as well as vaccine research.
Under Trump’s policy, Washington University stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding. Several stalled projects specifically focused on African American health outcomes.
The university reported in December 2024 that it secured $683 million in NIH research support during federal fiscal 2024, a record high that ranked second nationally for the second year in a row. Over the past eight years, Washington University School of Medicine had been the fastest-growing among top U.S. research institutions in NIH funding.
In February 2025, Dr. Will Ross told the St. Louis American, “Trump’s cuts to NIH will not only hobble critical biomedical research and stifle innovation, but will also impede the ability of investigators to address some of the long-standing health issues in the African American community.”
“The cutting-edge advances in diabetes care and hypertension, two major causes of poor health and disability among African Americans, will be stalled as we continue to see disproportionate deaths from these preventable diseases,” Ross said.
The ACLU praised the settlement but cautioned that the broader issue remains unresolved.
“Researchers deserve to have their work evaluated on its merits, not sidelined by political interference,” said Olga Akselrod, senior counsel for the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “NIH has now agreed to review the stalled applications individually and in good faith, without applying the unlawful policy directives.”
The agreement also sets deadlines requiring NIH to review and decide applications based on their original submission dates. It further confirms that the close of federal fiscal 2025 will not prevent NIH from reviewing or awarding applications.
“This agreement marks another important step toward restoring trust in our public institutions,” said Kenneth Parreno, counsel at Protect Democracy. “By committing to evaluate these NIH grant applications on their scientific merit, not on political ideology, the federal government is taking a necessary step to ensure that facts, evidence and the rule of law guide the decisions that shape our nation’s health and innovation.”
While the administration did not permanently abandon its effort to evaluate research funding based on institutions’ DEI programs, the settlement provides a path to resume reviews while courts continue to consider whether such criteria are lawful.
NIH officials “will complete their consideration of the Applications in the ordinary course of NIH’s scientific review process, without applying the Challenged Directives,” the agreement states, adding the agency will “evaluate each application individually and in good faith.”
The settlement was signed by U.S. Department of Justice lawyers and the attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, Maryland, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said the agreement commits the Department of Health and Human Services to resume “the usual process for considering NIH grant applications on a prompt, agreed-upon timeline.”
The 17 attorneys general originally sued in April over $783 million in frozen research grants.
The lawsuit and settlement could prove essential to Washington University and other leading academic centers whose research includes studying higher maternal and infant mortality rates and disproportionate breast and ovarian cancer outcomes among Black women.
“(Studies on) estimates that Black Americans have about twice the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease compared to white people, will be put on hold through the (funding) pause and ill-conceived cuts to NIH research payments,” Ross said when Trump began his second term.
A trial court and appeals court in Massachusetts sided with the states earlier this year, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in August that the trial judge lacked authority to compel the grants to be paid, particularly given a similar ruling involving the U.S. Department of Education.
The national ACLU, ACLU of Massachusetts, Protect Democracy, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP filed a separate lawsuit in April challenging abrupt cancellations and stalled grant applications on behalf of individual researchers.
Joining that suit were the American Public Health Association, the United Auto Workers and Ibis Reproductive Health.