Judge Apologizes for Defying Supreme Court in NIH Grants Case

Almost two weeks after a significant admonition from two Supreme Court justices urging lower-court judges not to go against their mandates, Judge William G. Young expressed regret from the bench. He pledged to comply with the Supreme Court's expectations, acknowledging the difficult position that lower courts have found themselves in this year amidst a growing collection of unsigned orders from the Supreme Court's emergency docket.

Judge Young's apology was made during a Tuesday hearing aimed at determining the next steps following the Supreme Court's August decision to overturn his ruling. In that ruling, he had sought to prevent the Trump administration from reducing funding to the National Institutes of Health by cutting off grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In their emergency order, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh indicated that Judge Young had undermined the court's authority by not applying a prior emergency order related to canceled Education Department grants to his case involving the NIH.