UC Berkeley researchers said the Trump administration, acting through the National Science Foundation, has again suspended research grants, adding pressure to a long-running legal fight over federal funding decisions and court orders. An attorney representing university scientists in a class action lawsuit said the NSF suspended at least 18 research grants to UC Berkeley in April despite an injunction restricting such suspensions. The NSF did not comment on the suspensions.
The dispute comes with a specific example at the Lawrence Hall of Science, where researchers have been developing mixed-reality exhibits scheduled to open May 17 and continue into future years. Jedda Foreman, associate director at the Lawrence Hall of Science, said one researcher on her team received an email April 17 from UC Berkeley vice chancellor of research Katherine Yelick notifying them that the NSF had suspended a $1.4 million grant. Foreman said she viewed the email, which referenced the university receiving a letter from the NSF raising concerns about “foreign funding,” and she said the email did not include a copy of the letter or further explanation.
Foreman said the Lawrence Hall of Science had not received foreign funding for the project. Claudia Polsky, a professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, said she represents Foreman and other researchers in the lawsuit and that the legal team was seeking more information about the 18 suspensions. Polsky said the freeze of Foreman’s grant raised concerns it may violate a court order in the case that had restored previously defunded projects.
Polsky said the “grantees were given near-zero information about what was problematic in the execution of their grant.” She said the case involves suspensions following earlier grant cancellations by the Trump administration that researchers had challenged. In her account, the new suspensions appear to raise additional questions about whether the government is using new administrative steps to avoid earlier legal limits.
UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in a statement that the university “is engaged with the government on matters pertaining to research grants, and remains committed to compliance with all federal laws, rules and regulations.” Mogulof declined to comment on the types of grants affected, the amount of funds at stake, or potential impacts on campus.
The April suspensions also fit into a broader pattern of federal grant volatility described by the lawsuit materials and UC’s planning for alternative funding sources. The University of California received $525 million in NSF grants in the 2024-25 budget year, but the source said the federal funding stream has become increasingly volatile under the second Trump administration. The federal agency has terminated nearly 2,000 grants nationwide that it said did not align with priorities, including those focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion, and it has been slower to approve and disburse new awards, according to the report.
In late April, President Trump fired all 22 members of an independent board of scientists that oversaw the NSF, and he is proposing to cut the agency’s budget by more than half in 2027, though Congress rejected a similar plan last year. Other federal agencies also terminated research grants in mass cancellations, and some of those cancellations have been reversed by courts, the report said.
Researchers are contesting grant reversals by several agencies, including the NSF, Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, Department of Transportation, Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency and National Endowment for the Humanities, in the class action lawsuit filed last year. The University of California itself is not a party to the suit. Last June, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin issued a preliminary injunction restoring grants canceled by the agencies, including for the Ohlone-focused exhibits co-led by Foreman, one of six named plaintiffs.
The report said Judge Lin barred the agencies from revoking funds using form letters that didn’t include an explanation specific to the grant at stake, or because of Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders. The judge also stepped in again after the NSF froze hundreds of grants to UCLA in August, requiring the agency to reinstate the funds after Lin ruled that indefinitely suspending a grant was the same as terminating it.
Polsky said last month’s suspension of Foreman’s grant raised concerns that the Trump administration was seeking a way around those orders, characterizing the action as not something that should have been canceled “on the merits.” She said it raised suspicion that the grant was being canceled through a different route.
As federal research support has become less predictable, UC has also moved to seek state help for scientific research. On Monday, UC President James Milliken spoke alongside state Sen. Scott Wiener and United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain at a Sacramento rally supporting legislation that would create a $23 billion fund for scientific research. If successful, the bill would place a bond measure on the November ballot, with money aimed at research in wildfire and pandemic preparedness, new medical treatments and other areas, and with revenue from inventions shared with the state. The report said the state assembly’s appropriations committee is set to consider the bill May 14.
Milliken said at a Wednesday meeting of the university’s board of regents that if the federal government continued trying to reduce research funding that he said “saves lives” and “drives the economy,” California should “step up.” UC provost Katherine Newman told the regents she has been meeting with leaders of the Russell Group, a consortium of top UK universities, to discuss collaborating on research in climate change, clean energy and public health, areas the report said have also seen federal funding threatened under the current administration.
Foreman said her team is working toward a May 17 opening despite the uncertainty. “We’re doing a lot of hoping and finger-crossing that something works out,” she said. Foreman said she wanted the project to share what researchers learn and that it was “such a powerful project” for the exhibit work with Ohlone youth.