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Supreme Court hands huge victory to Trump over DEI funding — John Roberts sides with liberal justices
Photo (left): Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Photo (right): MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Supreme Court hands huge victory to Trump over DEI funding — John Roberts sides with liberal justices

Ketanji Brown Jackson said the court was playing "Calvinball."

The Trump administration racked up another massive victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, but without the help of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts sided with the liberal-leaning justices in the dissent against the rest of the court in the split 5-4 decision. The administration successfully overturned a lower court order that blocked the defunding of $783 million from the National Institutes of Health.

'Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.'

The ruling affects only a part of the estimated $12 billion in cuts to the NIH.

The Trump administration argued that the NIH studies into diseases in minority, gay, and transgender communities were unscientific, were not an effective use of taxpayer money, and went against the president's orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” President Donald Trump said in his speech at his inauguration.

Roberts wrote only one paragraph to explain his dissent, which had to do with whether the lower court had the authority to block the funding.

"This relief — which has prospective and generally applicable implications beyond the reinstatement of specific grants — falls well within the scope of the District Court’s jurisdiction," Roberts wrote.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was far more contemptuous in her solo dissent, which ran to 21 pages.

"This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins," she wrote, referring to a comic strip from Calvin and Hobbes.

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The petitioners included a union and 16 Democratic state attorneys.

"Even a brief stay would invalidate these and other multiyear projects, already paid for by Congress, in midstream, inflicting incalculable losses in public health and human life because of delays in bringing the fruits of Plaintiffs' research to Americans who desperately await clinical advancements," the lawsuit reads.

In June, U.S. District Judge William Young ruled that the funding cuts were "arbitrary and capricious" and said it was "palpably clear" that the administration was motivated by racism and homophobia.

"I've never seen government racial discrimination like this," said Young, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan. "Have we no shame?"

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Carlos Garcia

Carlos Garcia

Staff Writer

Carlos Garcia is a staff writer for Blaze News.