Noah Feldman, Columnist

Amy Coney Barrett Is a Maddening Voice on Grant Cases

The justice’s opinion on the Trump administration’s termination of NIH funding has implications for other cases before the court, including Harvard’s lawsuit.

August 25, 2025 at 6:30 AM EDT

By Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

A stickler for legal technicalities.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America

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When it comes to lawsuits against the Trump administration for unlawfully terminating government grants and contracts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has become the deciding voice at the Supreme Court.

In an important decision concerning the National Institutes of Health’s termination of grants related to gender, DEI and Covid, Barrett held that grant recipients are permitted to sue in federal district court to challenge the legality of the NIH’s actions. But she also ruled that the recipients must pursue claims for monetary relief in the separate, specialized Court of Federal Claims if they win in district court.