After Her Grants Got Cut, This Researcher Is Suing The NIH

Katie Edwards has lost millions of dollars in grant money, bringing her research to a standstill. She’s taking the fight to court.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ira Flatow?

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• 0:16Speaker 01

  WNYC is supported by Bear. Science is about asking questions, testing, trying again. It's not easy, but it's relentless. It evolves, and that's why science delivers. Learn more at sciencedelivers.com.

• 0:31Flora Lichtman?

  Hi, I'm Flora Lichtman, and you are listening to Science Friday.

• 0:37Flora Lichtman?

  Today in the podcast, a researcher who's fighting back against the federal cuts to science.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  You know, initially, I was feeling so helpless and just like, this is the end of my career. Then I got angry, and then I said, I'm going to do something about this. And now I'm suing the NIH.

• 0:57Flora Lichtman?

  Since January, the National Institutes of Health has made sweeping cuts to science. They add up to hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars of research funding lost. Some scientists are fighting back, taking the NIH to court. And for the first time in months, they're seeing some small victories. Last week, a Boston judge ruled that many of these cuts were illegal and said they needed to be reinstated. And this week, internal memos show the NIH might be walking back some of those cancellations and stopping further cuts. A scientist at the center of one of these lawsuits is Dr. Katie Edwards. She's the director of the Interpersonal Violence Research Lab at the University of Michigan. We talked to her on Thursday. Katie, welcome to Science Friday.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:41Flora Lichtman?

  Katie, you study violence prevention, and I want to hear more about that in a minute. But since March, you've lost eight grants, millions of dollars worth of funding. What's been the fallout for your research program?

• 1:56Speaker 03

  So we received our first termination in March. And since then, I think devastating and catastrophic are the only ways I know how to describe it, or the simplest ways. First, it's impacted staff. We have

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Over 50 staff, and they will be essentially without a job here in the near future. And many of them are already at reduced hours. And that's really devastating. I mean, it's completely paralyzed our research. We have, it's been chaos trying to scramble to figure out how do we pause a study that we're in the middle of an intervention? For example, trying to prevent suicide and depression among trans and gender diverse youth to, you know, a study with over 3,000 sexual minority men? How do we stop this study? So it's, it's, it's just been utter chaos because we can't just pull the plug, you know? It's like someone's on the operating table. You don't just walk out and leave them right in the middle of surgery.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  So we have an ethical obligation beyond those two things. I think more broadly, the impact to, to public health and should be, you know, on the brink of groundbreaking scientific discovery and then to just say, well, so, so much for that.

• 3:14Flora Lichtman?

  Tell me a little bit about your work, what you do.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  In the research lab, we essentially develop programs with community leadership that help us prevent sexual and, and various forms of violence. We also look at the promotion of mental health, which we know goes hand in hand with violence prevention. And we do this work with the most vulnerable youth, families and communities in this nation. So we work with youth in communities of color, indigenous communities, LGBTQ plus youth. And we find in our interventions that we're making a difference. We see that we're reducing violence. We see that we're reducing depression. We see that we're reducing substance use. So that's what we focus on in the lab and which has really just been completely dismantled in the last few months.

• 3:57Flora Lichtman?

  Why were you told that these grants were terminated?

• 4:00Speaker 03

  The letters varied a little bit, but some focused on DEI and how DEI is bad. DEI is unscientific. Others focused more on gender ideology and how gender ideology is unscientific and doesn't benefit most Americans. And all essentially said something along the lines of, you know, waste of taxpayer money.

• 4:24Flora Lichtman?

  So the, the rationale that we have heard from the Trump administration is, is this sort of war on woke ideology, right? And it sounds like that's what the NIH nodded to in the letters terminating your work. What's your reaction to that?

• 4:40Speaker 03

  There are so many emotions, you know, I mean, the first one, the second one, the third one. I think shock in some ways that like that the National Institutes of Health, the number one biomedical agency in the world was sending something that was so scientifically incorrect, um, that was so hateful. You know, I, I have moments where I think, gosh, if people could just see what we do, right? If people could see what we do and the impact that our work has, you know? I feel like this, uh, that so many words have become weaponized and they've become like these dirty, naughty words when we're literally trying to help kids who experience the disproportionate burden of violence

• 5:25Speaker 03

  to live lives that are safe, where that they can be healthy and where that they can be happy. And, and, you know, initially I was feeling so helpless and just, you know, like, this is the end of my career. This is the end of, you know, all the, the, the, the, the work we've done to, you know, prevent violence, improve youth outcomes, you know, like this is all ending. And then I, I got angry and then I said, I'm going to do something about this. And now I'm suing the NIH.

• 5:55Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah. How did you decide I'm going to fight this in court? You know, was there a breaking point?

• 6:00Speaker 03

  There was, you know, I was, for a couple of days, I was just so down. I mean, really, really down and, um, crying, crying a lot and, you know, and, but also in panic mode. What am I going to do? What am I going to do in shock? And after a couple of days, I was like, I'm going to fight this. I don't know how I'm going to fight this, but I'm going to fight this because I have to. And then I was like, there's all these lawsuits right now. Like, can we file a lawsuit? Because I don't understand how this is legal. So the mutual colleague said, Protect Democracy is doing some fact finding, some information gathering. Would you be willing to talk to someone at Protect Democracy? And I said, absolutely. I'll talk to anyone who can help.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  It felt like for the first time, like maybe if this goes forward, like this has teeth. Uh, when they decided that they were going to move forward and file and, and that they asked me if I would be a named plaintiff, I said, absolutely.

• 6:57Flora Lichtman?

  Did it feel risky? Were you concerned about being a named plaintiff?

• 7:02Speaker 03

  I was, um, and I still have moments where I am, you know, I've received death threats before for my research and get hateful messages every now and then, but to me I had to do it. I, I have to stand up for what's right. You know, this isn't just about me getting our grants back. This is about fighting for justice in public health research. This is about fighting for kids and families that don't have voices and that this administration is trying to erase. So absolutely there was some hesitation, some fear, but I knew that I had to do this. And if I didn't do it, it would be something I regretted. And, um, I couldn't be prouder to be, to be part of this lawsuit.

• 7:43Flora Lichtman?

  Your lawsuit argues that it's discriminatory to end grants based on forbidden terms like gender identity and DEI. And it also argues that the process by which these grants were canceled violates the law. A federal judge in Massachusetts recently sided with you, is that correct?

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, last Monday was a day that I will never forget. To hear the judge say, I've been at the bench for 40 years, over 40 years, and I have never in my career seen racial discrimination and discrimination against LGBTQ plus Americans like this. And I mean, his final words are have we no shame, has our country fallen so low? And I actually, I, I was sitting at home watching it on Zoom and my wife was sitting next to me, holding my hand. And I just cried and cried and cried because in that moment, I felt like, like I could breathe deeply for the first time. It was the first time in a few months. I

• 8:44Speaker 03

  had a lot of hope for our country and like, cause I'd been feeling pretty, pretty unhopeful.

• 8:50Flora Lichtman?

  So the judge sided with you and then just in the last few days, the NIH reportedly sent a memo halting any new grant terminations. And according to Science Magazine, they sent a second email on Wednesday saying that the canceled grants in your lawsuit must be reinstated. So has the money started flowing again yet?

• 9:11Speaker 03

  So I haven't seen any money yet from the terminated grants. I did receive a notice of award today for a new grant that we had done all the paperwork for back in December to receive. And then it was just kind of radio silence for a few, well, more than a few months. And we did finally receive that official notice of award today.

• 9:34Flora Lichtman?

  Just today?

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Just today. But in terms of the other terminated grants, we have not. But I was so elated when I saw that news. I mean, this is such an emotional roller coaster. And I'm just really happy that today there's good news. And it's just surreal to have been part of this, you know? I mean, I'm getting a lot of people saying, oh, my gosh, you know, thank you. Like, you're part of the reason this is happening. And it's just what a wild time to be alive.

• 10:06Flora Lichtman?

  What happens next with the lawsuit?

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Well, I hope first and foremost, we get our terminated grants back really quickly. And then my understanding is the federal government was planning on appealing. You know, they alluded to that previously. You know, I know that my attorneys or our attorneys are determined to win and will go all the way to the Supreme Court. You know, it sounded like the government was prepared to do that. And maybe they still are. You know, I don't know. It's just impossible to keep up with it all, honestly.

• 10:43Flora Lichtman?

  What is your message to other scientists?

• 10:46Speaker 03

  You know, one of the things that I hear a lot is this need to pivot and this need to submit grants or return to cover up what we're doing. So things like, even though I'm really interested in the role of structural racism on health inequities, I'm going to call it stress and health problems. You know, it's just.

• 11:06Speaker 03

  It scares me. What we need to do is we need to resist. We need to fight for science. We need to fight for doing science that has integrity and it's evidence driven and that it respects the dignity of people. And so I think my, my cry and call to scientists is don't pivot. Um, we need to be fighting back and not bending the knee just to get grants funded because I'm really, really worried that if we start doing that, we're gonna make this a lot worse and it's gonna take a lot more work to get out of this. You know, I think when I talk up to my younger staff and, you know, students and postdocs and staff who want to go on into academia and research.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  I mean, so many of them want to give up, you know, and I get it. I mean, I'm a full professor. You know, I'm a full professor and I had moments where I've literally thought about changing my career, but I won't and I won't let them. I tell them like, this is horrible. Like this is devastating. This is traumatic and we have to allow ourselves time to feel sad, to feel down, to cry, but we have to pick ourselves back up because if we fall apart, nothing's gonna get better. Um, as much as there are moments where I feel like I just can't do this anymore, like I, I will never stop fighting.

• 12:27Flora Lichtman?

  Katie, good luck. We'll be following this maybe, as you say, all the way to the Supreme Court.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  I know. I was talking to my dad the other day and he's like, I can't believe you're going to the Supreme Court of the United States. I know, Katie Edwards from Alabama, you know? Going to SCOTUS suing the NIH.

• 12:46Flora Lichtman?

  Dr. Katie Edwards is the Director of the Interpersonal Violence Research Laboratory and a Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan. Special thanks to Kenneth Perino at Protect Democracy for speaking with us.

• 13:02Flora Lichtman?

  Thanks for listening. If you like the show, rate and review us wherever you listen, or just go straight to guerrilla marketing. Take a friend's phone and subscribe them to this podcast. Please help us get the word out about Science Friday. Today's episode was produced by Rasha Aridi, but a lot of folks helped make this show happen every single week, including Jordan Smudjic. Emma Gomez. Sandy Roberts. Velissa Mears. I'm Flora Lichtman. Thanks for listening.