You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The Trump administration’s cuts to research funding at Columbia University can remain in effect, at least for now, a federal district judge ruled Monday.
The American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, two unions representing Columbia faculty, first filed the lawsuit in late March. They called the president’s decision to freeze more than $400 million in grants a “coercive tactic” that undermines institutional autonomy and sought a preliminary injunction against multiple departments, including Education, Justice and Health and Human Services.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of the Southern District of New York, however, ruled that the unions had no standing to file the lawsuit in the first place—only the university could do that, she said.
“Our democracy cannot very well function if individual judges issue extraordinary relief to every plaintiff who clamors to object to executive action. Neither the executive branch nor the legislature ever awarded the grants and contracts at issue to plaintiffs or any of their members,” wrote Vyskocil, a Trump appointee, in her opinion. “The funding that plaintiffs ask this court to commandeer was awarded to Columbia, which is conspicuously absent from this case.”
But AAUP, AFT and Protect Democracy—the nonprofit legal group representing the two unions—said in a statement after the ruling that the judge’s decision “contains a number of clear errors” and said they will appeal.
“This is a disappointing ruling, but by no means the end of the fight,” AAUP president Todd Wolfson said in a statement. “Ultimately, lifesaving research, basic civil liberties, and higher education in communities across the country are all on the line. Faculty, students, and the American public will not stand for it. We will continue to fight back.”
