In 2025, the National Institutes of Health took two distinct actions that together ended, or paused indefinitely, its longest-running programs for building a more diverse biomedical research workforce. This page tracks what was actually terminated, under what authority, the measured scale of the broader 2025 grant-termination wave, and the current status of litigation challenging it — updated as the record develops rather than frozen at a single announcement date.
What NIH terminated: the Minority Biomedical Research Support Program
On August 25, 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services posted a notice to the Federal Register terminating the NIH Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) Program and rescinding the program’s underlying regulation. MBRS had for decades funded institutional support — including undergraduate and graduate student research salaries, lab access, and mentorship from senior investigators — aimed at building a pipeline of researchers from backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical science. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited the program’s non-compliance with the current administration’s executive orders barring federal agencies from supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion-related activities as the stated basis for termination (STAT News, August 25, 2025).
The earlier signal: diversity supplement applications frozen in February 2025
The MBRS termination was not the first move against NIH’s diversity-focused workforce infrastructure that year. On January 24, 2025, the application window for NIH’s diversity supplement mechanism — administrative supplements to existing R01-type awards that fund additional salary and training support for students and early-career researchers from underrepresented groups — abruptly closed on the NIH website. Grant reviewers were subsequently instructed to exclude pending diversity-supplement and related diversity-grant applications from consideration in the funding cycle then underway, consistent with the administration’s January 2025 executive orders prohibiting federal DEI-related spending (STAT News, February 7, 2025). For the underlying mechanics of that supplement program as a funding instrument, see CASRAI’s guide to the NIH Diversity Supplement.
Scale: how the broader 2025 termination wave affected minority researchers
The MBRS and diversity-supplement actions sat inside a much larger wave: NIH terminated roughly 2,291 active research grants in 2025, withdrawing an estimated $2.45 billion in previously awarded funding. A national survey of 941 scientists whose NIH grants were terminated that year found the terminations disproportionately affected researchers from minority and other marginalized groups, who were both overrepresented among those whose awards were cancelled and more likely to have had their specific project targeted on subject-matter grounds rather than performance (PMC, peer-reviewed analysis of 2025 NIH terminations). For the general legal mechanics of how and why NIH terminates an award — grounds, notice, and appeal rights under the Uniform Guidance — see CASRAI’s guide to NIH Grant Terminations; this page focuses specifically on the diversity-program terminations and their litigation history.
The legal challenge: where litigation stands
A coalition of public health organizations, unions, and individual researchers — led by the American Public Health Association — sued NIH and HHS over the 2025 terminations. On July 2, 2025, Judge William Young of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that the guidance documents directing the terminations, and the terminations themselves, were arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, and ordered NIH to reinstate the plaintiffs’ cancelled funding (American Civil Liberties Union case summary; Higher Ed Dive).
The First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government’s request to stay that ruling on July 18, 2025. The government then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, which in August 2025 held that the lower court likely lacked jurisdiction to review the termination of grants tied to specific disfavored research topics or populations — without disturbing the district court’s underlying vacatur of the termination guidance itself. The practical effect was that most of the individually terminated grants were not immediately reinstated, even though the guidance that produced the terminations had been found unlawful. In December 2025, a further agreement between the parties led NIH to release more than 100 grants whose review had been placed on hold. Separately, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya indicated in comments reported at the end of December 2025 that DEI-related grants restored under the court order should not be assumed to be renewed going forward, and could be terminated again in a subsequent funding cycle (STAT News, December 31, 2025).
What this means for institutions and researchers right now
As of this writing, the MBRS program’s termination and the January 2025 freeze on new diversity-supplement awards both remain in effect — neither has been formally reversed by NIH or HHS, notwithstanding the district court’s finding that the underlying guidance was unlawful. Institutions with active or pending diversity-supplement requests, and researchers whose projects were flagged for subject-matter review, should treat this as an unsettled, actively litigated area rather than a closed matter: grant status can change with further court orders or agency notices, and research administrators tracking specific awards should confirm current status directly through their NIH program officer or the eRA Commons record for the award, not through news coverage alone. This page will be updated as the litigation and any successor programs develop.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Minority Biomedical Research Support Program permanently gone?
It has been formally terminated via a Federal Register notice that also rescinded its authorizing regulation, which is a more durable action than a funding pause. Reversing it would require either a new rulemaking or Congressional action, or could follow from further developments in the pending litigation, none of which had produced reinstatement of MBRS specifically as of this writing.
Are NIH diversity supplements still available at all?
New applications for the diversity-supplement mechanism were frozen starting January 2025, and reviewers were instructed to exclude pending diversity-focused applications from that funding cycle. Institutions should confirm current mechanism status directly with their NIH institute or center program officer before assuming standard pre-2025 eligibility and process still apply; see CASRAI’s NIH Diversity Supplement guide for the mechanism’s original design.
Does the court ruling mean terminated grants get their funding back?
Not automatically, and not uniformly. A district court found the termination guidance unlawful and ordered reinstatement for the plaintiffs in that specific case, but the Supreme Court’s August 2025 jurisdictional ruling meant most individually terminated grants were not immediately restored. A December 2025 agreement released more than 100 held grants, but NIH leadership has since signaled that restored funding is not guaranteed to be renewed in later cycles.
What authority did HHS cite for the MBRS termination?
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited the program’s non-compliance with the administration’s executive orders barring federal support for diversity, equity, and inclusion activities as the basis for terminating MBRS and rescinding its regulation.
