I Can’t Believe This Is Happening In 2025 — But Thank God This Judge Had The Courage To Say It Out Loud
He Just Called Out Trump’s Racism and Bigotry, And Forced His Administration to Reverse Course
Executive Summary
On Monday in Boston, U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee since 1985, heard lawsuits from 16 state attorneys general and public health groups challenging Trump’s 2025 orders that canceled hundreds of NIH research grants for minorities and LGBTQ+ communities, all under the excuse of gutting “diversity” programs. Judge Young ruled the NIH’s actions “illegal” and “void,” ordering the grants restored. As he put it: “I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable… My duty is to call it out.”
Here’s What Happened
Let’s get honest for a minute. This is not supposed to be happening in America. Not in 2025. Not after everything we’ve lived through. And yet, here we are, watching this country get dragged backwards by a president and administration that seem hell-bent on erasing decades of hard-fought progress on civil rights, human dignity, and basic decency.
I’ll tell you what hurts the most. It’s knowing that millions of Americans wake up every day feeling like their existence is under attack. Not because of anything they’ve done. But because of who they are. Because of the color of their skin. Because of who they love. Because they don’t fit into some narrow, outdated definition of what Donald Trump and his enablers think America should look like.
The Trump administration has made it crystal clear where it stands. It has weaponized executive orders to strip away funding for medical and scientific research that serves racial minorities and LGBTQ+ communities. The National Institutes of Health was forced to pull support for life-saving studies under orders coming directly from Trump’s White House. All under the sickening disguise of cutting what they call “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs and what they love to label “gender ideology extremism.”
This isn’t about budget cuts. This isn’t about fiscal policy. This is about discrimination. Open. Obvious. In plain view. And the pain this causes millions of Americans is real. Families wondering if critical research that could save their child’s life is now dead in the water. Parents of LGBTQ+ youth wondering if anyone in power even cares whether their kids make it through the next decade. Entire communities being told by their own government that their health, their survival, isn’t worth studying. Isn’t worth saving.
But today, there is hope.
That hope came in the form of a federal judge who did something we don’t see often enough anymore: he stood up. He called it what it is. And he put the brakes on this cruelty. U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee who has served on the bench for four decades, saw through the smoke and mirrors. And he didn’t mince words.
“I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” Judge Young said from the bench.
He wasn’t finished.
“I am hesitant to draw this conclusion — but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it — that this represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.”
There it is. Truth, plain and raw. And it’s about time somebody in authority said it out loud.
The Trump administration argued, predictably, that these funding cuts were simply part of its policy agenda. That it’s the president’s right to set new priorities. That all of this is just politics as usual. But when you slice through their legal arguments, what’s left is nothing but targeted discrimination dressed up as fiscal policy.
The Department of Justice didn’t even try to seriously defend the cuts on the merits. Instead, they offered hollow talking points. At one point, the DOJ’s own lawyer, Thomas Ports Jr., tried to claim that research focusing on gender identity “often” lacks scientific value and “does nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.” Judge Young wasn’t buying it. He challenged them directly: “Where’s the support for that? … I’m asking you [to] just explain to me ‘often used to support unlawful discrimination.’ I see no evidence of that.” Exactly. Because there isn’t any.
Trump’s Real Agenda
This entire episode isn’t just offensive. It’s dangerous. It reveals the real agenda behind much of what Trump and his circle are pushing. Strip away the talking points and you find something dark underneath: a desire to erase people they don’t want to see. A desire to return America to a time when certain groups were expected to stay invisible, silent, or afraid. That’s what this administration is trying to resurrect. And if we don’t stand up and call it what it is, we risk watching those old systems of oppression take root again.
Judge Young made it clear that this wasn’t some technical legal debate. This was about the Constitution. About whether this country is going to continue to protect all of its people. He asked the question that every American should be asking right now: “You are bearing down on people of color because of their color. The Constitution will not permit that. … Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”
I believe the Trump administration, and its enablers, have fallen this low. And I believe it’s going to take every single one of us to pull this country back up.
This ruling matters because it sends a message that not everyone in power has surrendered to this ugliness. There are still judges willing to draw a line in the sand. To say no. To say this is not who we are supposed to be. I even wrote about how I believe federal judges will save democracy in my post, “The Last Line of Defense: How Federal Judges Stand Between Trump’s Lawlessness and the Collapse of Democracy.”
But make no mistake. This fight is far from over. Trump’s people will appeal. They’ll attack the judge. They’ll continue the spin machine to convince their base that this is just liberal courts run amok. They will try to sell the lie that they are simply defending American values when in reality, they are dismantling them.
And that’s why we can’t get comfortable. This ruling gives us a little more oxygen. A little more room to fight. But it doesn’t end the battle.
Conclusion
What Trump and his allies are doing isn’t just hurting minorities or LGBTQ+ Americans. It’s hurting the entire country. It’s undermining science. It’s undermining health care. It’s undermining our standing in the world. And most of all, it’s undermining our democracy.
We are standing at a moment where the very foundation of equal protection under the law is being tested. The question is whether enough Americans are paying attention. Whether enough of us are willing to push back. Whether enough of us will show up, vote, and stay loud.
The answer cannot wait until the damage is irreversible. The answer has to be now.
Because our kids are watching. Our grandkids are counting on us. And history will judge what we did while this was happening.
Mitch Jackson, Esq. | links
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Right, this applies to every sector of society no matter the situation or circumstances.