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Press Release:

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Tong Sues Trump Admin­is­tra­tion to Pro­tect Sci­en­tif­ic Research

Preceding Event:

On April 18, 2025, The Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion (NSF) began end­ing projects focused on increas­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of women, minori­ties and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties in STEM fields. Some of these projects includ­ed stud­ies on mis­in­for­ma­tion and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. They also announced via email that they were was adopt­ing new pri­or­i­ties. The direc­tive sent out by the NSF said, “efforts to broad­en par­tic­i­pa­tion in STEM should not pref­er­ence some groups at the expense of oth­ers, or directly/indirectly exclude indi­vid­u­als or groups…research projects with more nar­row impact lim­it­ed to sub­groups of peo­ple based on pro­tect­ed class or char­ac­ter­is­tics do not effec­tu­ate NSF pri­or­i­ties.” On May 2, 2025, NSF announced it was going to cap indi­rect spend­ing costs asso­ci­at­ed with research — such as lab­o­ra­to­ry space, equip­ment, and facil­i­ty ser­vices — at 15% across the board, mil­lions of dol­lars from uni­ver­si­ty research facil­i­ties. Sim­i­lar rate caps at the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and the Nation­al Insti­tute of Health have been legal­ly enjoined.

General Overview:

Accord­ing to the press release from May 28, 2025, “Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong today joined a coali­tion of 15 oth­er attor­neys gen­er­al in suing the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to stop its ille­gal attempts to cut crit­i­cal Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion (NSF) pro­grams and fund­ing that help main­tain the Unit­ed States’ posi­tion as a glob­al leader in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, and math (STEM).“
NSF has been an inde­pen­dent fed­er­al agency since its incep­tion in 1950. NSF fund­ed research at uni­ver­si­ties has helped the U.S. main­tain a com­pet­i­tive edge in STEM. Accord­ing to the press release, NSF has “a Con­gres­sion­al­ly-man­dat­ed focus on improv­ing diver­si­ty in STEM fields. Con­gress has instruct­ed in law that a ‘core strat­e­gy’ of NSF’s work must be to increase the par­tic­i­pa­tion of peo­ple who have his­tor­i­cal­ly been left out of STEM occu­pa­tions.“
The suit alleges that the direc­tive and the sub­se­quent actions vio­late the Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dures Act and also go against the Con­sti­tu­tion “by unlaw­ful­ly chang­ing NSF pol­i­cy and ignor­ing Congress’s intent for how NSF should func­tion,” accord­ing to the press release.

Connecticut Nexus:

Accord­ing to the press release, “This includes tens of mil­lions of dol­lars to Connecticut’s pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties for a broad array of ground­break­ing research, includ­ing projects to improve storm pre­dic­tion, grid resilien­cy, drought-resis­tant for­est man­age­ment, tech­no­log­i­cal improve­ments to air traf­fic con­trol and prod­uct deliv­ery, sup­port for minor­i­ty stu­dents in STEM edu­ca­tion and careers, and many more.”

Date of filing:

May 28, 2025

Case #:

1:25-cv-04452

Case title:

State of New York et al v. Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion et al

Plaintiffs: 16 states

• STATE OF NEW YORK;
• STATE OF HAWAIʻI;
• STATE OF CALIFORNIA;
• STATE OF COLORADO;
• STATE OF CONNECTICUT;
• STATE OF DELAWARE;
• STATE OF ILLINOIS;
• STATE OF MARYLAND;
• COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS;
• STATE OF NEVADA;
• STATE OF NEW JERSEY;
• STATE OF NEW MEXICO;
• STATE OF OREGON;
• STATE OF RHODE ISLAND;
• STATE OF WASHINGTON;
• STATE OF WISCONSIN

Defendants:

• NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION;
• BRIAN STONE, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Act­ing Direc­tor of the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion

Court:

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

Status as of Dec. 1, 2025

CLOSED — Ter­mi­nat­ed on Aug. 25, 2025
Judg­ment against plain­tiffs

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