
Trump wielded an ax at DEI. Federal judge was not having it.
Young rightly ruled that this kneecapping of basic medical research explicitly based on race and gender characteristics of those being studied is itself a form of racism decreed with apparently no care for the medical value and relevance of the banned research.
Advertisement
William August
Get The Gavel
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Cambridge
The writer is a lawyer who previously served as general counsel responsible for administrative law matters for a Massachusetts state agency.
Administration runs smack into the rule of law and a courageous jurist
Chris Serres's article
US District Judge William G. Young, finding the administration to have been discriminatory against minorities and LGBTQ individuals, ruled that the cuts to more than 800 research grants by the National Institutes of Health were 'illegal and void.' The judge confirmed what millions of Americans now believe, namely that the government's wholesale assault on government programs and constitutional rights is not about policy nor based on facts. It is about revenge, retribution, and cruelty.
Advertisement
There can be no good-faith or legal basis for the wholesale assault on America's universities, law firms, medical researchers, scientists, and libraries, to name a few. This judge called it as he saw it.
In typical overheated fashion, a White House spokesperson attacked the judge's ruling as 'appalling.' Perhaps this spokesperson never had a civics lesson in high school. What this judge did was to apply the law and look for some rational basis for the cuts the administration had imposed. He found none.
Thomas F. Maffei
Melrose
The writer practices law in Boston.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Mark Cuban said he was 'embarrassed' to find out some Dallas Mavericks staff needed government benefits
Mark Cuban has urged companies to raise wages to reduce Medicaid costs. President Donald Trump's bill aims to cut Medicaid, which over 70 million Americans depend on. Cuban said he was "embarrassed" to find out some of his arena employees were reliant on assistance. "When I found out I had employees at our arena on public assistance, I immediately gave raises to every hourly employee and their managers," Cuban said of staff working for the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, adding that he was "embarrassed" to make this discovery. "It's just wrong," Cuban, who bought a majority stake in the Mavericks in 2000 and retains minority ownership, said in an X post. "The best way to reduce the cost of Medicaid is to name and shame big employers that pay their full time employees so little, they qualify for Medicaid," the billionaire wrote in a different post on X on Thursday. President Donald Trump has demanded that his "big beautiful bill" be passed by July 4. The legislation would impose significant limits on Medicaid, a healthcare government program that more than 70 million Americans rely on. Under the bill, childless adults who do not have a disability between 19 and 64 would have to work at least 80 hours per month to qualify for Medicaid. The Congress Budget Office estimated that a previous version of the legislation would save over $900 billion in federal spending over the next decade. $700 billion of these savings would come from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts. The CBO projected that nearly 11 million Americans would lose their insurance because of these changes introduced by the tax bill by 2034. Cuban, a frequent critic of Trump, said he thinks reductions to Medicaid should come from employers. "When a large employer pays so little that their full time employees qualify for Medicaid , (or any public assistance ) we the taxpayers are effectively subsidizing that big company," he wrote in a post on X.


The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
After strikes, Trump must provide maximum support for Iran's people
Israel's stated aim in its war with Iran was to 'eliminate' the Islamic Republic's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. And at this point, this is the only goal that President Trump officially espouses now after U.S. strikes have taken place. And that goal may satisfy the military side of the ledger. But politically, the confrontation ends only with the regime's collapse. It is critical that Americans understand why and resolve to embrace the menu of non-military policy options available to them to effect this outcome. The joint operation may have delayed Iran's nuclear program by years, yet airstrikes will never eliminate the regime's nuclear aspirations. The Islamic Republic will rebuild its program, which it views not as a bargaining chip, but rather as the insurance policy of an ideologically driven elite that believes survival hinges on the strategic immunity that a nuclear weapon provides. This conviction cannot be negotiated out of them, no matter how comforting it is for Westerners to pretend otherwise. Indeed, every previous cycle of sanctions, secret enrichment, incremental deals, and breakout has ended in the same place: with the regime richer and closer to a bomb, and the rest of the world more fatigued. Until the Israeli operation, this cycle appeared to be on a repeat loop. Only 24 hours before it started, Omani mediators and Trump himself, were still touting a sixth U.S.-Iran meeting in Muscat for the following Sunday. By dawn Friday, the negotiating table had been overturned by Israeli missiles enforcing Trump's 60-day deadline. Meanwhile, the regime's social foundations have been eroding. Official figures put year-on-year inflation at around 40 percent, and the rial has slid to almost 900,000 per dollar in the open market, losing more than a third of its value since January. Youth joblessness is still above twenty percent and labor-force participation keeps shrinking. Nationwide labor strike networks that outlasted three rounds of repression, in 2019, 2022 and 2024, have re-emerged, this time spearheaded by truckers and bakers. A public that already registers its contempt through mass protests, strikes, and election boycotts now watches the clerics squander millions on ballistic theatrics while Israel penetrates Tehran at its core. When nationwide protests reignite, Iranians will not take to the streets to demand a better deal in Muscat. Rather, they will continue to demand an end to clerical rule. Pre-strike warnings that U.S. involvement in the operation would spawn quagmires and body bags have been disproven. Yet a lasting victory requires an equally disciplined and non-kinetic campaign that erodes the regime's legitimacy, finances, grip on information, and arms of repression. Congress has drafted the blueprint. The bipartisan Maximum Support Act would redirect U.S. policy from shuttle diplomacy to tangible help for the Iranian people. The U.S. can pierce the regime's digital curtain with satellite direct-to-cell service and mass VPN distribution, ensuring videos from within Iran keep flowing and loosening Tehran's grip on the information space. Extending visa and asset bans to the spouses and children of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Basij, and Law Enforcement Command chiefs, would strengthen U.S. national security while sowing fractures inside the security apparatus. So would the establishment of a confidential relocation channel for officials willing to provide evidence of regime crimes, offering would-be defectors a lifeline and encouraging further elite fragmentation. This becomes increasingly relevant as fear among regime officials and scientists reaches an all-time high. Tehran has long treated its own population as a liability. When crisis shakes the Islamic Republic, the response is depressingly familiar: detention, torture, and execution. The post‑ceasefire dragnet, already marked by the arrest of hundreds and the targeting of religious and ethnic minorities, is likely only the opening act of what could become the regime's bloodiest escalation yet. The U.S. and its allies should act before the gallows can be built. They should diplomatically isolate the regime, sanction the judges and jailers who direct this terror, and expedite efforts to keep the internet alive inside Iran. At minimum, a clear public warning, echoing President Trump's 2020 tweet — 'DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS … the USA is watching … turn your internet back on' — would give Iranians vital moral encouragement. The Obama-era echo chamber created a false binary choice between a bad deal and total war. Today, Tucker Carlson and others are recycling this fallacy. But objectors from those weary of the long and expensive quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan should be eager to adopt these policies. These measures cost the U.S. no troops, no treasure, and no strategic distraction from other theaters, yet they strike at the regime's central nervous system. With respect to concerns about public U.S. support undermining the internal legitimacy of the protestors, these are understandable but misbegotten. Trump himself dispelled this notion during his first term, when his tweets in Persian went viral. Iranians already chant, 'Our enemy is here, they lie when they say it is America.' Iran has among the most pro-American dissidents anywhere in the world. Washington must not distance itself from any upcoming protest movements, as that would only feed the narrative that no great power truly backs the Iranian people. In the regime's eyes, the U.S. is already implicated. Sanctions, snap‑back debates, and now the air campaign are factoring into Tehran's domestic calculus. Pretending neutrality or turning a blind eye simply defaults to a policy of helping the regime survive. This is why Iranians have begged Trump not to make a deal with the regime, with one spray-painting on a wall inside the country, 'President Trump, don't sell us out!' The recent attacks have bought time, yet that time can quickly evaporate. The current window can be squandered attempting to resurrect a charred negotiation file, or it can be invested in the only strategy with a chance to shut the nuclear program for good. The Iranian people will be ready. And the U.S. should ensure they have every tool they need when they are ready. Military considerations aside, there are ways to do so without risking a U.S. soldier or spending a dollar of U.S. taxpayer money. Give them the chance.

Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Mark Cuban said he was 'embarrassed' to find out some Dallas Mavericks staff needed government benefits
Mark Cuban said he was "embarrassed" to find out some of his staff were having to use government benefit programs. "When I found out I had employees at our arena on public assistance, I immediately gave raises to every hourly employee and their managers," Cuban said of staff working for the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, adding that he was "embarrassed" to make this discovery. "It's just wrong," Cuban, who bought a majority stake in the Mavericks in 2000 and retains minority ownership, said in an X post. "The best way to reduce the cost of Medicaid is to name and shame big employers that pay their full time employees so little, they qualify for Medicaid," the billionaire wrote in a different post on X on Thursday. President Donald Trump has demanded that his "big beautiful bill" be passed by July 4. The legislation would impose significant limits on Medicaid, a healthcare government program that more than 70 million Americans rely on. Under the bill, childless adults who do not have a disability between 19 and 64 would have to work at least 80 hours per month to qualify for Medicaid. The Congress Budget Office estimated that a previous version of the legislation would save over $900 billion in federal spending over the next decade. $700 billion of these savings would come from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts. The CBO projected that nearly 11 million Americans would lose their insurance because of these changes introduced by the tax bill by 2034. Cuban, a frequent critic of Trump, said he thinks reductions to Medicaid should come from employers. "When a large employer pays so little that their full time employees qualify for Medicaid , (or any public assistance ) we the taxpayers are effectively subsidizing that big company," he wrote in a post on X. Cuban said CEOs could afford to take their employees off Medicaid by accepting less profit and asking shareholders to increase the price-to-earnings ratio they receive. He called this "the right thing to do for the country" in a post on X.