Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), working in lockstep with the Trump administration’s values, has terminated nearly $122 million in federal grants. These taxpayer-funded handouts were largely earmarked for projects soaked in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideology and LGBT-focused agendas, many of which critics say had little or no medical value.
The move is a powerful rebuke of the Biden-era spending spree that saw 195 separate projects funded under the guise of health equity, despite many being thinly veiled exercises in leftist social engineering. The grants were found to focus narrowly on racial or sexual identity groups, with questionable ties to broader public health needs.
The cuts have not only sparked outrage among former Biden administration loyalists but have also triggered at least one high-profile resignation: Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the former head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. His resignation followed the firing of Dr. Susan Monarez, previously the Senate-confirmed CDC director, who similarly resisted the department’s new direction.
Although the exact dollar amount is hard to pin down — due to partial disbursements and multi-year funding timelines — most of the cancellations were finalized in March with the help of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Others have been shut down as recently as August.
Among the most egregious examples was a $5.5 million grant to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for its “Vanderbilt FIRST” initiative, a program solely designed to recruit “at least 18 tenure-track faculty from minoritized racial and ethnic groups.” That’s right — a university with a $10 billion endowment, ranked among the top 20 in the U.S., still demanded federal dollars to push DEI hiring practices.
Drexel University was set to receive $4.6 million for a similar effort, supposedly to “catalyze systemic change” to support diverse faculty in “health disparities research.” Translation: more race-based hiring and identity-driven programming with little relation to curing disease or improving medical outcomes.
Even more questionable was a $2.4 million grant to the University of Virginia for studying “neurodevelopmental biomarkers” in “female and gender diverse” autism patients — an eyebrow-raising project under a broader $12 million initiative launched in 2022.
The University of Michigan lost $1.1 million intended to “improve inclusivity” in Alzheimer’s research for Asian American and Latinx communities. Meanwhile, Case Western Reserve University was stripped of $8 million for a DEI-heavy initiative aimed at overcoming “barriers” in clinical trial recruitment — another vague endeavor couched in equity jargon.
At UC San Francisco, more than $3.4 million was rescinded for a project on anti-Asian racism titled ARISE (“Asian Americans & Racism: Individual and Structural Experiences”). The project aimed to study how racism affected 1,500 Asian-American seniors during COVID — a clear example of using taxpayer money for ideological exploration rather than medical research.
Even more bizarre was a $208,000 study at the University of Washington targeting stigmas among Indigenous sexual minority men and traditional healers in Mesoamerica. A researcher’s CV noted it aimed to increase PrEP/ART adherence (HIV treatment), HIV testing, and reduce stigma in Guatemala. Why American taxpayers should fund sexual health outreach in Central America is a question no one seems willing to answer.
Other canceled projects included:
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$576,000 to Loyola Marymount University for a “gamified” mental health app targeted at sexual minority women.
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$31,691 to Boston Medical Center to assess dementia in transgender populations.
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$350,000 to the University of Minnesota for HPV screening in gay men.
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$490,000 to Ohio State University for an HPV vaccine trial specifically for young sexual minority men.
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$275,000 to Rhode Island Hospital for a project on alcohol and sexual assault prevention in bisexual women.
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$814,000 to Columbia University to study how “vicarious discrimination” affects blood pressure in minority populations.
One project even proposed analyzing daily blood pressure diaries to measure the impact of intersectional stigma — a concept so ideologically rooted that it’s barely distinguishable from political science rather than medical science.
Assistant HHS Secretary for Public Affairs Rich Danker issued a strong statement on behalf of the administration:
“Under the Trump administration, the NIH’s medical research once again serves all Americans, and will no longer be co-opted for political agendas such as DEI.”
