Grants Dispute Opinion Highlights Supreme Court's Loose Ends

Litigation attorney Steven Gordon was quoted in a Bloomberg Law article about an ongoing jurisdictional question that has arisen in lawsuits over federal funding cuts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently issued a decision that reversed a lower court ruling and concluded that a grant funds dispute between the U.S. Department of Education and two Virginia school districts belongs in federal court rather than the U.S. Court of Federal Claims because the school districts are seeking a policy change instead of financial damages. As plaintiffs have taken the Trump Administration to court over grant cuts and restrictions, the question of who should review has continued to arise. The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in with 2025's National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association, but that decision came as part of the court's shadow docket for emergency applications, leaving questions unresolved. Steven told Bloomberg Law the Fourth Circuit's decision "illuminate[s] the issue" and the Supreme Court "will probably have to speak again in order to clarify how the issue should be analyzed and bring more uniformity to the law being made by the lower federal courts."

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