When it comes to lawsuits against the Trump administration for unlawfully terminating government grants and contracts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has become the deciding voice at the Supreme Court.

In an important decision concerning the National Institutes of Health’s termination of grants related to gender, DEI and COVID, Barrett held that grant recipients are permitted to sue in federal district court to challenge the legality of the NIH’s actions. But she also ruled that the recipients must pursue claims for monetary relief in the separate, specialized Court of Federal Claims if they win in district court.

Barrett’s decision hinges on a legal technicality that was rejected by the other eight justices. The court’s three liberals, plus Chief Justice John Roberts, concluded that the dist

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