Harvard Medical researcher sues NIH for cutting grant to study LGBTQ mental health
An associate professor at Harvard Medical School is suing the National Institutes of Health after her funding to study the mental health of young LGBTQ people was cut, affecting a team of 18 researchers and causing students to fear for their safety.
'These grant terminations have broader implications. When science is silenced by ideology, we all lose,' Brittany Charlton — who is also an associate professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the founding director of the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence — said in the lawsuit.
For more than 15 years, Charlton has received more than 15 grants and was awarded an R61 grant from the NIH. This last grant 'aimed at time-sensitive policy questions, to study the impact of discriminatory and supportive legislation on the mental health of LGBTQ young people,' the lawsuit, filed earlier this month in federal court but updated Friday, read.
'The overarching goal of the R61 project was to understand how four types of LGBTQ-related policies — religious exemptions, healthcare bans, restrictive curricula, and supportive curricula — impact mental health in late adolescence and early adulthood,' Charlton said in the lawsuit. 'The findings would offer timely, evidence-based guidance to help healthcare providers, educators, and policymakers improve mental health for all young people, not just those who are LGBTQ.'
The act of applying for the grant 'was an intense and compressed process,' with only months to write the application to secure five years of funding,' she wrote. Family events, professional obligations and personal milestones had to be 'set aside" in order for her to receive the grant in a timely manner.
NIH had previously approved $4.15 million in grant money, with the project launched in August 2024, Charlton wrote. In February, she received a no-cost, two-month extension on her grant that was to last until April 30. To Charlton, this was unusual; she contacted her program officer for context and their supervisor and received no responses.
Then, NIH terminated her funding on March 12.
'This award no longer effectuates agency priorities,' NIH told Charlton, according to the lawsuit. 'Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans. Many such studies ignore, rather than seriously examine, biological realities. It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize these research programs.'
'Before the termination, I had never received any previous indication that my grant was in jeopardy,' she wrote. '... I do not understand what the termination notice and revised Notice of Award mean by 'gender identity' or 'biological realities' concerning my project.'
When Charlton spoke with an NIH program officer, the officer told her that she had never seen any such terminations while working at the agency, the lawsuit stated.
'This program officer expressed that she did not understand how anonymous decision-makers not familiar with the details of the project had concluded that 'no corrective action is possible' or that the project conflicted with agency priorities — particularly as I had responded to a specific Notice of Funding Opportunity that sought out projects addressing this particular topic,' Charlton wrote.
Terminations for grants while applicants are in the middle of their projects are 'highly unusual and inconsistent with established precedent,' she added.
Without her portfolio of grants, Charlton wrote that she's now lost her own salary and the salaries of the 18 people who work with her at the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence. She has had to fire one senior member of her team and 'fear I will have to terminate all remaining team members.'
'The termination of this research has upended the lives and careers of dozens of my team members — master's students, doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and staff, many of whom relocated or made life-altering commitments to pursue this work," she wrote.
One student took medical leave to address their mental health following the terminations 'and may never return to the field,' Charlton continued. Another team member went on leave due to the stress that the terminations caused.
'The threats to our work don't just make me fear for my career — they make me fear for my safety,' one team member told Charlton, according to the lawsuit. 'I wonder whether this country still has a place for people like me.'
'These grant terminations are not just the loss of individual careers — it is the quiet dismantling of a generation of future leaders in medicine and public health, and with them, the hope for a more equitable future," Charlton wrote.
'These grant terminations have broader implications. When science is silenced by ideology, we all lose,' she continued. 'If research on marginalized communities can be erased for political reasons, it sets a dangerous precedent: that some lives are less worthy of understanding, care, or protection. This is not just an attack on the LGBTQ community — it is a blow to the integrity of science and the health of every American."
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