HHS axes more than $300M in gender, DEI-related health grants to California alone

FIRST ON FOX: Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) terminated more than $330 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender research in the state of California alone, Fox News Digital learned Thursday. 

“HHS terminated more than $330 million in wasteful research funding to organizations in California that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a Thursday statement to Fox News Digital. 

“The terminated research grants are simply wasteful in studying things that do not pertain to American’s health to any significant degree, including DEI and gender ideology. As we begin to Make America Healthy Again, it’s important to prioritize research that directly affects the health of Americans.”

Fox News Digital examined the list of terminated grants, all of which were related to DEI initiatives or gender-related issues, and predominantly were issued to colleges within the California public school system, such as the University of California, San Francisco and UCLA, as well as private colleges and research institutes located in the Golden State. 

HHS SLASHES OVER $350M IN GRANT FUNDING FOR GENDER IDEOLOGY, DEI RESEARCH PROJECTS

“Harnessing the power of text messaging to reduce HIV incidence in adolescent males across the United States,” one $5,122,427 grant that was awarded to a nonprofit called the Center for Innovative Public Health Research reads, Fox Digital learned. 

“Sex hormone effects on neurodevelopment: Controlled puberty in transgender adolescents,” was the title of a terminated $3,692,048 grant to Stanford University, according to HHS. 

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“#TranscendentHealth – Adapting an LGB+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys,” reads another $1,319,024 grant awarded to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research. 

The University of California, San Francisco’s $2,554,402 grant for “Structural Racism and Discrimination in Older Men’s Health Inequities” also was canceled, Fox Digital learned, as was a $822,539 grant to UCLA called “Buddhism and HIV Stigma in Thailand: An Intervention Study.”

A total of 61 NIH research grants focused on gender and DEI in the state of California were canceled. 

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The grant cancellation announcement comes after President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders removing DEI initiatives from the fabric of the government following President Joe Biden’s tenure. 

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Trump, on his first day in office, signed an executive order focused on “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs” and one focused on restoring merit-based opportunity and “ending illegal discrimination,” which ended DEI practices at the federal level in favor of merit-based systems.

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Federal agencies across the board have since worked to gut federal offices of DEI initiatives to abide by the president’s orders. On Friday, HHS announced it had terminated hundreds of other NIH research grants related to DEI and gender that totaled more than $350 million. 

The research grants included research on “multilevel and multidimensional structural racism,” “gender-affirming hormone therapy in mice” and “microaggressions,” among others. 

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.