The White House has acknowledged in federal court filings that officials used keyword searches to identify and terminate research grants, a practice that stripped billions of dollars from university and hospital research programs, with California institutions among the hardest hit, the Associated Press reported.
The admission emerged from ongoing litigation over a sweeping wave of federal research grant cancellations that began in 2025, when agencies including the National Institutes of Health moved to end funding for projects the administration deemed connected to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives or so-called “gender ideology.”
How the Keyword System Worked
According to court records cited by the AP, reviewers were instructed to search grant titles, abstracts and project summaries for specific terms — including words related to gender, diversity, equity, transgender health and related disparities research — and flag matching grants for termination. Officials have now conceded in filings that this automated, term-based screening process, rather than individualized scientific or programmatic review, drove many of the cancellations.
Researchers and legal advocates who have challenged the terminations in court say the disclosure confirms what they long suspected: that thousands of grants were cut based on the presence of certain words rather than an assessment of their scientific merit, cost, or actual subject matter.
Attorneys representing affected universities argue the keyword-driven process violated federal law requiring agencies to provide individualized, reasoned justifications before canceling previously awarded research funding.
California Bears the Brunt
California’s public and private research universities, among the largest recipients of federal science funding in the country, have absorbed a disproportionate share of the cuts. The University of California system, Stanford University and other California-based institutions have reported losing hundreds of millions of dollars in active grants covering fields such as HIV prevention, maternal health, cancer disparities research and mental health among LGBTQ populations.
State officials, including California’s attorney general, have joined multistate lawsuits arguing the terminations were arbitrary, unlawful and politically motivated rather than grounded in scientific judgment. California has positioned itself as a lead plaintiff in several of these actions given the scale of research funding flowing into its universities and teaching hospitals each year.
Legal Fight Escalates
The grant cancellations have already produced significant courtroom setbacks for the administration. Earlier rulings found that similar terminations were “arbitrary and capricious” under federal administrative law, and judges ordered some funding restored, though the government has continued to appeal and, in some cases, has moved to terminate the same grants again through revised justifications.
The newly disclosed use of keyword searches is expected to bolster plaintiffs’ arguments in pending cases, since it undercuts administration claims that each grant was individually evaluated on its scientific or policy merits before being cut. Legal experts say documentation showing a blanket, automated screening process could make it harder for agencies to defend terminations as case-by-case decisions.
Administration’s Position
Health officials have defended the broader funding overhaul as an effort to eliminate what they describe as ideologically driven research and refocus federal science spending on core public health priorities. Agency leaders have said grants tied to diversity programming or gender-related studies fell outside the administration’s funding priorities and were reviewed as part of a policy realignment following the change in administration.
Critics counter that many of the flagged projects had little to do with political programming and instead involved fundamental biomedical and public health research — including studies on disease prevention, maternal mortality and health outcomes for underserved populations — that happened to use now-flagged terminology in required federal reporting language.
Fallout for Researchers
The cuts have forced layoffs, paused clinical trials and, in some cases, shut down multi-year longitudinal studies that cannot easily be restarted once data collection is interrupted. University administrators say the abrupt nature of the terminations — often with little notice — has been especially damaging for graduate students and early-career scientists whose work depended on the canceled funding.
- Universities report having to lay off research staff and postdoctoral fellows tied to canceled awards.
- Some clinical trials involving human subjects were halted mid-study, raising ethical and safety concerns among researchers.
- Multiple state attorneys general have joined litigation seeking to force reinstatement of canceled grants.
What Comes Next
With the keyword-search admission now part of the court record, plaintiffs are expected to push for expedited rulings restoring canceled funding, while also seeking broader discovery into how many grants nationwide were affected by the practice. The scope of the litigation, combined with the scale of California’s exposure, suggests the fight over federal research funding is likely to continue playing out in courts for months to come.
For now, researchers across California and beyond remain in limbo, uncertain whether interrupted projects will resume or whether the funding cuts will ultimately be upheld on appeal.
Additional details on the litigation and the administration’s use of keyword screening are available via the Associated Press.
