21-05-2025
Judge rules Trump administration must restore grants to Nashville, other cities
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration must reinstate grants awarded to several American cities, including Nashville.
Nashville was one of six cities that joined with nearly a dozen nonprofits, led by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Public Rights Project, to file a lawsuit in late March aiming to halt the Trump administration's funding freeze.
In a May 19 ruling, U.S. District Judge Richard Mark Gergel prohibited federal officials from freezing or terminating a majority of the grants reflected in the lawsuit and ordered the funding to be restored.
Each plaintiff in the suit was awarded funding under the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other federal statutes. For Nashville, that included a combined $14 million in funding for the 'Electrify Music City' project, which would upgrade and expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and the 'East Nashville Spokes' project to help fund a transit connection project, including protected bike lanes and pedestrian improvements.
Here's what else to know about the ruling, which the Southern Environmental Law Center says is one of the first final judgments in a case challenging the administration's actions.
Gergel issued what's known as a permanent injunction in the case, meaning that the court's decision was final. Failure to comply with an injunction can result in a party being held in contempt of court, but permanent injunctions may also be appealed. As part of the ruling, the Trump administration must confirm it's compliance within a week.
Nashville Director of Law Wally Dietz told The Tennessean that the ruling was the product of "excellent legal work" from the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Public Rights Project and Metro Nashville attorneys Courtney Mohan and Lora Fox.
"The president's administration exceeded its constitutional authority when it rescinded these grants," Dietz said. "Only the courts can protect the rule of law."
According to the ruling, the Trump administration conceded that its decision to cancel grant funding based on executive orders violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies can develop and issue regulations.
That ruling applies only to 32 of the 38 grants in the suit that were funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The other six, per the ruling, were funded by general appropriations to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, rather than through an act of Congress.
Nashville is still waiting for a ruling in its second lawsuit against the Trump administration, filed in late April over recent public health funding cuts that the city argues are unconstitutional.
Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him at ahornbostel@
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Judge rules Trump administration must restore grants to Nashville
