Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by former President Donald Trump, expressed strong frustration with lower courts for defying Supreme Court rulings. His remarks came after the Court delivered a narrow 5-4 decision allowing the Trump administration to cut federal NIH research grants tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, gender identity studies, and COVID-19-related projects. The NIH will no longer issue grants based on DEI or race-based criteria.

Gorsuch, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, criticized what he called a troubling pattern of lower courts ignoring Supreme Court precedents. The immediate case involved a federal judge in Massachusetts who ordered NIH payments to continue, despite a prior Supreme Court ruling allowing similar cuts. Sixteen Democratic attorneys general and several health organizations had filed lawsuits, claiming the cuts were discriminatory.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett cast the deciding vote, aligning with the Court’s conservatives to halt the grants but also joining Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal justices to preserve a lower court ruling that struck down NIH policy guidance on DEI. Gorsuch warned that the Massachusetts ruling was part of a broader issue of judicial defiance, citing two other recent instances where lower courts had overstepped Supreme Court authority.

In one of those cases, even liberal Justice Elena Kagan joined the majority to block a district court’s resistance to Supreme Court orders. Another involved the Court upholding Trump’s power to fire members of administrative agencies, which a lower court had attempted to challenge.

Trump, since returning to office in 2025, has moved aggressively to dismantle Biden-era DEI initiatives, calling them discriminatory. The Supreme Court has supported several of his actions, including cutting DEI-linked teacher training grants.

Barrett added in a concurring opinion that the case should have been filed in a different court. The decision overturned a Reagan-appointed judge who had sharply condemned the cuts as discriminatory against LGBTQ communities.